Menu, Journal of Food and Hospitality Research Volume 1, 2012, Pages 97- 100
Book Review : Sociologie d’une crise alimentaire. Les consommateurs à l’épreuve de la maladie de la vache folle
RAUDE, J. (2008) Paris, Edition Lavoisier, collection Sciences du risque et du danger, série Innovations, 2008, 259 p.
Marine Fontas Université de Toulouse 2 - Le Mirail
DOI: https://doi.org/10.26048/ah4q-6228 Abstract: The food systems of the occidental countries have faced multiple sanitary crisis. The mad cow crisis, having deeply left its mark on individual and collective minds, induced several social, political and economic repercussions by directly influencing the food choices of the consumers. In France, in particular, the food choices were affected at different levels and for relatively short periods.
In what conditions and in which way the consumers change their food behaviour when they are potentially exposed to risks ? The economical, epidemiological, socio-anthropological and legal analysis of this crisis tends to demonstrate that the food system conservatism and resilience would seem, in this perspective, to be factors defining the food practices in a context of food crises.
In his book, Sociologie d’une Crise Alimentaire, Jocelyn Raude throws a new light on the theory of food unreasonableness against risk, often believed as being the consequences of the irrational fears of the consumers : indeed, he proposes an new analysis of the risk perception and human behaviour during the mad cow crisis based on the diversity of rationalities that structure the consumers’ food behaviours during a sanitary crisis.
