In pandemic times, get (des)orientalized

brief considerations about culture and eating in china

Authors

  • Lays Matias Mazoti Corrêa Federal University of Viçosa

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2316-9133.v29isuplp135-143

Keywords:

covid-19, culture, eating, China, orientalism

Abstract

Racism and xenophobia cases have increased in a significative way against the East Asian population in the contemporary context of COVID-19 pandemic. This essay aims to analyse some of the socio-anthropological issues that became more present nowadays.  It starts discussing the Chinese bat soup issue to highlight the prejudice existing in the popular Western mind about eating habits in China. Orientalism works here as the main theoretical key to approach the historical setting of discourses conceiving the East Asian body as epidemiologically inferior, that is, the stereotypical representation that resulted in the production and reproduction of a unique history about countries and population that makes up this region. Eating habits go beyond the simple act of eating, since implicitly or explicitly they also manifest power relations, in this case, between the West and East.

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Author Biography

  • Lays Matias Mazoti Corrêa, Federal University of Viçosa

    Professor at the Federal University of Viçosa

References

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Published

2020-08-11

Issue

Vol. 29 No. supl (2020)

Section

Articles and Essays

License

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How to Cite

Corrêa, L. M. M. (2020). In pandemic times, get (des)orientalized: brief considerations about culture and eating in china. Cadernos De Campo (São Paulo, 1991), 29(supl), 135-143. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2316-9133.v29isuplp135-143