Globalizing nature: Political and cultural economy of a global seafood industry.

详细信息   

• 作者：Mansfield ; Becky Kate.
• 学历：Doctor
• 年：2001
• 导师：Cartier, Carolyn L.
• 毕业院校：University of Oregon
• 专业：Geography.;Agriculture, Fisheries and Aquaculture.;Economics, Agricultural.
• ISBN：0493295119
• CBH：3018380
• Country：USA
• 语种：English
• FileSize：7317184
• Pages：178

文摘

Fish resources are increasingly drawn into global networks of production, trade, and consumption. To analyze the globalization of ocean resources, this dissertation focuses on the global surimi industry. Surimi is a fish paste used to make a wide variety of fish cakes and imitation seafood products such as imitation crab. Once entirely a Japanese industry, surimi is now produced and consumed in parts of Asia, the Americas, and Europe. The objective of this analysis is to understand the processes that produce and maintain this global industry. The research focuses, first, on how Alaska pollock, from the North Pacific Ocean, has been drawn into transnational production chains as a result of the establishment of 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zones, which have encouraged globalized forms of ocean-resource based economic activity. Efforts to assert national control over ocean territory simultaneously facilitated processes of globalization, which include joint venture partnerships, foreign direct investment, and increased international trade. Second, analysis of the transformation of fish into surimi and of surimi seafood from a Japanese food item into a Euro-American one reveals how the creation of imitation crab as a commodity reflects cultural-economic processes of commodity transformation that influence the socio-spatial structure of the surimi industry. Third, the analysis reveals how natural processes influence the development of transnational industries through different definitions of quality, which are the result of interactions between specific physical characteristics of the fish, food practices, and production strategies. Different ideas of product quality affect global circuits of production and trade within the surimi industry. The resulting ‘geography of quality’ affects types of fish used, methods of processing, and the range of products available in different markets. The study concludes that using a framework emphasizing connections between economic and non-economic processes facilitates analysis of industrial activities and patterns. Examining how global industries are constituted through economic, political, sociocultural, and environmental practices highlights the ways that globalization is about heterogeneity and multiple geographies of connection and separation.