Food anxiety: Ambivalences around body and identity, food safety, and security

Abstract

This introductory chapter to the edited volume Food Anxiety in Globalising Vietnam puts food in Vietnam in global perspective in terms of agricultural development, food system modernisation, and socio-cultural relations, and conceptually outlines food anxiety as the book’s common lens. This lens proves central for understanding the ‘dangerous’ side of food as material matter and symbolic meaning. ‘Food anxiety’ uncovers the politico-economic context and the socio-cultural embeddedness of eating and the struggles of urban consumers and food producers with ambivalences around the security and quality of food, their bodily integrity and identity. From the perspective of critical development studies, this chapter opens up the following discussions around power and the inclusive and exclusive nature of food globalisations in local contexts.