中文
In 2011, a shocking news story unraveled. Chemicals normally used as plasticizer to make plastic soft were found to have been used for years as food additives and added to a wide array of food and drinks, including those sold by many famous brand names. Nobody is sure who had consumed how much of these, or what health effects they would have. This was but one of several huge food safety crises about to break out in the subsequent years. Public fury over food safety issues, and a widely shared anger over government and big corporations, would come to define a great part of Taiwan’s political discontent in the 2010s. All lawsuits about the plasticizer food crisis concluded in 2018. Several small-business owners selling plasticizer as food additive were given long prison sentences and fined heavily. Big corporations whose products contained such chemicals, on the other hand, were only ordered to give meager amounts to consumers in compensation. This was obviously not a satisfactory outcome for the public. The Food Safety and Sanitation Act was amended more than ten times since the 2011 controversy in response to one after crisis another. At this time, we revisit this historical controversy, taking it out of the courtroom context and into a negotiation theater. Human and non-human actors such as the chemicals and the body will talk to each other in a non-hierarchical setting, and see what will come out of this re-imagining of the historical incident nine years ago.
Hsin-Hsing Chen
PhD in Science and Technology Studies from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA. Currently a professor at the Graduate Institute for Social Transformation Studies, Shih-Hsin University; editor-in-chief of Taiwanese Journal for Studies of Science, Technology and Medicine; member of the editorial board of the periodical East Asia Science Technology and Society; board member of the Society for Social Studies of Science (“4S”); and a member of the consultative team for the collective occupational-disease lawsuit of former Taiwanese workers against the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). Recently published works include Bad Stuff in Your Food and Other Pressing Matters, an examination of the three interconnected issues of occupational disease, pollution and food safety, and social practices within different political and cultural contexts, arising from his experiences with the RCA Incident.
Yi-Ping Lin
PhD from the Institute of Health Policy and Management, National Taiwan University. Current Associate Professor and former head of the Institute of Science, Technology, and Society, National Yang Ming University. Her academic specializations include science, technology and society; gender and health; environment and health; risk management and communication; medical anthropology; and social epidemiology. A member of the consultative team for the collective occupational-disease lawsuit of former Taiwanese workers against the Radio Corporation of America (RCA).
Tsung-Yen Tsou
MA from the Institute of Science, Technology, and Society, National Yang Ming University. His master’s thesis “Undisciplined Formula: Food Industry, Technology, and Regulation in Taiwan Plasticizer Event” received a 2020 Excellence Award for a Master’s Thesis from the Taiwan Science, Technology and Society Association.
