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SUMMARY:People's vital minimum: canteens and nutrition science in industri
 al China - Seung-joon Lee (National University of Singapore)
DTSTART:20180201T130000Z
DTEND:20180201T140000Z
UID:TALK98554@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Richard Staley
DESCRIPTION:At the moment when Mao Zedong was triumphantly standing atop t
 he Heavenly Peace Gate in Beijing's Tiananmen Square to declare the foundi
 ng of a new socialist regime on 1 October 1949\, China was facing an exist
 ential crisis: food shortages. The Communists now had to face the same dil
 emma that had long haunted their political arch-enemy\, because food scarc
 ity and rampant malnutrition could not be solved overnight\, even after th
 e downfall of the KMT rule. The malnourished population\, once a strategic
  target for mobilization against their political opponent\, could turn int
 o a potential political threat to the new regime's stability. Furthermore\
 , food calories arguably remained the prime source of energy in China's na
 tional economy\, which was predominantly agricultural. To build a strong s
 ocialist economy — industrially mighty and yet egalitarian — the Chine
 se working population would need to eat better and consume more food than 
 it ever had before.\n\nAgainst this backdrop\, the Communist authorities u
 ndertook unsparing efforts to promote nutrition science in order to optimi
 ze the working population's food consumption. Rather than starting from gr
 ound zero\, however\, the Communists emulated the state-led nutrition move
 ment that the previous regime had once practised. Industrial canteens — 
 once a political battleground upon which workers seeking their food entitl
 ement and the KMT-style labour management frequently collided — transfor
 med into a new space that embraced various culinary innovations\, nutritio
 nal experiments\, and the politicization of nutrition science.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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