Антропология
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The Ambiguity of Hygiene and Taste-Focusing on the Fish-Farming Industry in Vietnam

Joonwon Lee

The terms ‘cultured fish’ and ‘wild fish’ have emerged recently as a reflection of socio-economic circumstances, but only some papers in Vietnam have researched them. This paper examines the human-nature relationship articulated in the distinction between cultured fish and wild fish in rural Vietnam. Nature has been socially constructed and considered in different ways according to its relationship with the social arena. In wild fish, the appraisal standard is taste, the state of being pollution-free and ingredients beneficial to the human body are emphasized. Nature that does not relate to human intervention is perceived as good. If humans intervene in nature, the nature is polluted and becomes useless to humans. The view that nature possesses independent productivity and is a subject of awe, a self-contained being, and an autonomous entity, appears in the consumption of wild fish. But in industrial fish-farming, elements such as export, productivity, and economic gains are taken very seriously, and hygiene and nutrition of fish are emphasized. Wild nature is considered unsanitary, dirty, wild, and dangerous. It is through control by humans that the feral state of nature is minimized and nature becomes sanitary, vitalized, and useful to human beings. In industrial fish-farming, under the guise of scientific control, people get rid of the dangerousness of nature directly. Meanwhile, nature in the consumption of wild fish and in industrial fish-farming is a product of the human spirit and an abstract concept that does not include concrete attributes. Wild fish is not in itself contrary to cultured fish. It is socially constructed and reflects a view of nature.