MAN EATING SHARK: UNRAVELLING THE DEBATE ON THE (UN)ETHICAL CONSUMPTION OF SHARK’S FIN IN SINGAPORE
TEO LI GEK PAMELA
"As fieldwork conducted among Singaporean consumers in this thesis evince... The “Say No to Shark Fin”campaigns and the broader issue of shark fin consumption have also received a fair share of criticism and opposition from consumers in the country, with some accusing NGOs of being culturally imperialistic and denying their human rights to consume what they wish...
In analysing the discourses and discursive framings embedded within anti-shark fin messages, I explicate the limitations of the framings and the tendency of the campaigns in providing i) a monolithic presentation that consuming shark fin soup is an unethical act of consumption and ii) the reductive and homogenized portrayal of the shark fin consumer as an “irresponsible” consumer...
“...that great delicacy of the modern cuisine, shark fin, appears to have become popular at this time [Song Dynasty]”–Freeman (1977: 155)
Throughout the ages, the Chinese have considered shark fin a high-status food (Anderson & Anderson, 1977), one of the eight treasured foods from the sea*, which accounts for its popularity at banquet settings. The consumption of high-value food throughout Chinese history is part of the Chinese “foodway” –‘...a way of life that involves food, food habits, andfood consumption’ (Wu & Tan, 2001:1)...
* - The eight treasured foods of the sea are shark fins,oysters, abalones, Beche-de-mer (sea cucumbers), roe, fish maw and fish skin.
The association of shark fin as a high-value food in Chinese food culture is an embedded historical and cultural phenomenon. The consumption of shark fin occupies a long history in Chinese food culture, originating during the era of the Song dynasty (960-1279CE)...
Fins are obtained from any variety of shark species but the shark fin market tends to focus on around fourteen species, such as the blue shark and the scalloped hammerhead (Eilperin, 2011)...
Shark fin soup originated as a regional delicacy in the Southern provinces of China, predominantly in the coastal areas of Guangdong and Southern Fujian, where seafood consumption is a core essence of Southern Chinese cuisine (Anderson, 1988; Simmons, 1991)...
For the Chinese, weddings are one of the key points in the ceremonial life of an individual. Chinese wedding ceremonies are often lengthy elaborate celebrations and colourful affairs replete with many symbolic meanings. Although contemporary Chinese weddings have evolved considerably from the past and have become increasingly divorced from Chinese tradition, “tradition” continues to play an important part in the wedding, and the performances of various customary rites remain important to Singaporean Chinese (Hoon, 1997). For instance, while the wedding couple’s parents and members of the older generation no longer control celebrations, the rites and displays at weddings are still carried out to uphold the “face” (reputation) of the families involved.The wedding banquet in particular, remains a key and expected component of Chinese weddings rites, which incorporates the bride into her new status as a member of her husband’s family (van Gennep, 1960, also see Freeman, 1957; Yeh, 1969). It is a ‘consumption-oriented rite of passage’ (Boden 2003: 50) and a social performance that exhibits the social status of the families involved usually through extravagance...
Food served at a wedding banquet is one means of conveying and commemorating status, as it has a uniquely important place in the social scheme of things –it is a marker of ‘social status, ritual status, special occasions and other social facts’(Anderson, 1988: 201). There are complex social rules involved with food at a wedding banquet, where even the number of courses served has a symbolic significance; every Chinese wedding banquet consists at least an eight-course dinner, as the Chinese believe that eight is a lucky number, and certain dishes are always served during the banquet. Each dish is specially selected for its symbolic meaning –happiness, prosperity, longevity or fertility –usually to bless the newlywed couple and their marriage. For example, scallops are a symbol of fertility as the Chinese pronunciation of scallops (带子)is a homophone for the phrase “raising children”. Including scallops into a wedding banquet menu would bless the couple with plenty of children. Shark fin on the other hand, owing to its expensive nature, is a symbol of wealth and prosperity, thus wishing the newlywed couple prosperity in their new marriage. Given that the Chinese wedding banquet is a consumption-oriented rite of passage, serving shark fin soup also reflects the economic and social status of the host as one who belongs to the upper echelons of society.
The banquet itself is also a symbol of reciprocal respect between the wedding couple and guests. From most guests’ perspective, the type of food served is an indicator of the quality of the wedding banquet...
To the older generation, the presence of shark fin at wedding banquets is to be expected, as a sign of filial duty...
Shark fin, and by extension the shark, is thus entwined and entrenched in Chinese food and ritual.Seeing the role and importance of shark fin in Chinese food culture as a pastpresent presents a way for thinking differently about the politics surrounding the ethics of its consumption, one where the sustainability of shark populations, concerns of cruelty from fin harvesting are not the only things at stake, but also of responsibilities towards others through social performance and rituals. In response to anti-shark fin campaigns, one of my older respondents had this to say:
“All this talk about saving sharks, what about saving Chinese culture? Nowadays young people have forgotten their roots. If you stop eating shark fin, you take away more Chinese culture. Is that right you tell me?” (Wong, Personal Interview, translated from a local dialect)
Wong’s point encapsulates one of the main points of contention advanced by proponents of shark fin consumption, in that animal activists are practicing cultural discrimination by telling the Chinese to give up a food that is “central” to their consumption practices...
Modern geographies of food have arguably distanced consumers, both spatially and cognitively, from producers, as well as concealing the very social relations and environmental impacts underlying food production (Duffy et al., 2005; Hudson & Hudson, 2003). This “disconnection”between food production and processing spaces and consuming spaces has meant that the kind of activities in the former is far removed from consumers’ everyday experiences and knowledge...
Consumers may feel ‘increasingly alienated from the way their food is grown and processed’ (Duffy et al., 2005: 17-18). In addition to obscuring consumer knowledge, this disconnection also reduces consumer awareness on the consequences of their consumption behaviour, and has thus been thought of as a barrier towards the adoption of more ethical means of (food) consumption, as well as an impediment towards enacting ethical responsibility to distant others (Smith, 2000)...
Consumption is inherently built upon our moral and ethical obligations to others within our social networks –what Barnettet al.(2005) terms the “ordinary ethics of consumption”. Hence, this poses a challenge in getting consumers to expand their ethical considerations towards distant and absent “others”, especially when such considerations conflict with their “ordinary”ethical responsibilities. It is unsurprising that in weighing competing ethical concerns, the wellbeing of consumer’s immediate and proximate circle would be more significant than that of others. In their qualitative study on shopping practices, Miele and Evans (2010) showed how shopping for food is rooted in maintaining relationships and accommodating the desires of their loved ones and not about making statements about the lives of animals on the market. Jackson et al.(2008) notes how very local concerns for the health and well-being of the family may conflict with our wider responsibilities for the environment or the needs of distant strangers. This is affirmed in a later study by Miller (2001), who notes consumers are likely to act morally towards their immediate family members than they are to demonstrate a wider ethic of care since this would involve subsuming the interest of their own household members to those of distant stranger...
While all food has ethical implications, some food has taken on connotations of being in particular ways, more “ethical”...
These ethical alternative types as Guthman (2003: 56) asserts, throw up numerous complications with respect to their “care-full”nature, finding them overtly morally troubling on issues of access, labour conditions and ecologies by which organic food is produced. ‘To posit one assemblage as unwaveringly good and the other as altogether bad de-politicises a potentially powerful politics of consumption’. Taking “alternative food”as an example, Goodman (2003) argues that the concept of “alternative”food is inherently problematic due to its vague definition and what it is alternative to, stating that the idea of “alternative”food tends to idealise and promote certain forms of production and consumption uncritically. In her study on organic agriculture, Guthman (2003, 2004) asserts how beneath its seemingly counter-cultural image resides a host of unethical practices such as poor labour conditions. Moreover, many so-called “ethical”foods have expanded into the “mainstream”, becoming equally a part of more conventional food systems, bringing into question whether such “mass”production can match the same standards of “alternative”production (Low &Davenport, 2006; Goodman et al,2011, Raynolds, 2009). For instance, Goodman notes that one of the largest purveyors of organic food is Wal-Martin the world. Hence, the dichotomy of “good” and “bad” is complicated, when the “alternative”begins to become what it opposes, necessitating a need to re-consider the characterisations of “alternative”foods as uncritically and uniquely“ethical”, and conventional foods are “non-ethical”(Holloway et al., 2007). As noted earlier, foodslabelled as “conventional” and “ordinary”have their own implicit moralities and ethical relationships and meanings embedded in them. The “ethics”of consumption can thus be ambiguous, slippery and consist of a number of interwoven layers and illustrates a politics of “goodness” and “badness” in the foodscape that is worthy of investigation, exploration and critique...
These debates thus raise the fundamental question of how and why in the first instance, are the consumption of some food or animals considered to be immoral. Why should certain food or animals be subjected to moral consideration? How are their moral statuses defined and why are certain food/animals regarded by animal rights groups as ethically superior and drawn into the circuits of ethical food campaigns, worthy of protecting from the jaws of consumption. As shown in the empirical chapters of this thesis, many consumers have questioned why should the shark be placed in a position of a stronger, higher moral status as opposed to other animals...
The degree of complexity involved in consumption activities calls into question the simple evaluation of what making the “ethical”choice is. Ethical consumption is considered costly, complex and difficult, placing unrealistic demands on people as consumers by ignoring other identifications and obligations. This necessitates a consideration of whether the choice to engage in ethical consumption can be entirely “ethical”. Choices that are coded as “ethical” might turn out to be less “ethical” than they appear, while “unethical” activities might possibly be less blameworthy than the moralistic register of ethical consumption discourses often suggest. More often than not, there is no clear agreement on what the “ethical” thing to do is in any particular case, raising the question on whether consumer choice can ever really be entirely “ethical”. These ethical dilemmas are not easy to resolve and this poses a problem to ethical consumption, in terms of getting people to commit to a particular ethical food campaign...
There is a tendency to refer to “animals”as a distinct group, blurring differences not only between animals of different species but also of the same species (see Derrida, 2008). The latter point is of concern in this thesis, as across the 465 species of sharks, not all are threatened by the international “fin trade”; using the aggregate category of “sharks”to discuss and analyse the issue would essentialise shark diversity, as well as overlook individual shark subjectivities...
Initially, the stakes of the research and of this thesis were personal,in that I had moral and political obligation to understand the intricacies ofthe“shark fin trade”and its consumption, so that I might offer in return an argument for why humans should not consume shark fin soup. Yet, over the course of the research, my ethical position on the issue evolved from one that was aligned with the most forceful of shark activists’ arguments, which states that shark fin consumption should be permanently banned on the grounds of animal rights/welfare infringement and sustainability reasons, to a more “moderate” position occupied by some activists, which states that it is acceptable to consume shark fin only if the trade is made sustainable. The change stemmed largely from the fact that as I researched the topic in greater depth, it was made apparent that the issue of “shark fin trade”and consumption was more complex than I had originally conceived, as the empirical chapters will discuss.
Moreover, adopting an animal rights perspective would conflict with the theoretical underpinnings of this thesis. The call for human rights to be extended to animals has been one of the most enduring and prevalent not only in the anti-shark fin movement, but in the animal movement broadly. However, there are many objections to the rights-based approach, of which I will outline one main argument relevant to the body of this thesis –the suggestion that the human rights framework cannot provide meaningful or long-term regard for animals because it is fundamentally humanist. Mitchell (in Wolfe, 2003)argues that the very idea of human rights is inherently incompatible with animals’ rights, as it is built upon a human/animal binary. In other words, humanism precedes the concept of animal rights and it conceptualises the human as that which has transcended and has control over the nonhuman (Anderson, 2007). The application of human rights to animals therefore cannot be used to provide a means of meaningful ethical consideration for animals (Wolfe, 2003; Calarco, 2008), as animal rights theory retains at its core the liberal individual humanist subject (Landry, 2011).
Thus, while the animal rights movement seeks to widen the circle of morality to include nonhumans, it proposes doing so through an anthropocentric notion of moral value (Hudson, 2011). As Calarco (2008:9) aptly puts it, ‘It is paradoxical to say the least, that animal rights theorists have used the same anthropocentric criteria that have been used to exclude animals from moral concerns to include only certain animals within that scope and to draw only a new, slightly different exclusionary boundary.’Adopting an animal rights approach and utilising a model of rights based on extension 50to those “similar to us” only ends up reinforcing the very humanism that grounds discrimination against nonhumans in the first place (Wolfe, 2003)...
Inter-generational group interviews were also conducted with three wedding couples and their parents to tease out any divergent views on the necessity of serving shark fin soup at wedding banquets... It was interesting to note that it was the parents that dominated the interview, providing insights into the social hierarchy behind wedding planning...
On 16 February 2012, a public forum –“Shark’s Fin Soup: To ban or not to ban?” was held at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies to discuss the viability of banning shark fin in Singapore as a means of reducing consumption rates...
Dr Choo-Hoo Giam, Alternative Representative of Asia of the Animals Committee at CITES:
1. 70% of shark catches are from developing countries, taken mostly by artisanal fishing
2.Sharks are not endangered
- “Saying sharks are endangered is like saying birds are endangered”
- Several species of sharks that are abundant such as spiny dogfish and blue sharks
- Out of the 400 species, only six have been considered endangered by CITES
3.‘Live’ finning is rarely practised, misrepresentation by activists
“Most fins are humanely taken from landed, dead sharks”
Activists have misled the world into thinking live finning is common and pervasive
Activists’ claim of 73 million sharks finned per year impossible in terms of manpower, would require millions of fishermen
4. Anti-shark fin campaigns are a form of cultural discrimination –‘Sinophobia’
“Shark’s fin soup is culturally discriminatory” –there have not been similar high-profile movements against caviar or Atlantic blue fin tuna. Activists are unfairly targeting Chinese consumers
5. Shark fin industry is not to blame
80% of sharks killed each year are caught accidentally and overwhelmingly in developing countries
25% of shark catch comes from India and Indonesia, countries that are home to ‘mostly poor’ fishermen who will eat every part of the shark and then sell the fin to eager buyers
“fin trade”is unrelated to fishing of sharks
Media hype is responsible for ‘misconceptions’ about the shark-fishing industry
6.Banning shark fin soup is not a solution
fins from bycatch will be wasted
hurts livelihood of millions of fishermen in poor countries
Hank Jenkins, President of Australia's Species Management Specialists:
1. Critique on tactics used by shark activists
Exaggeration and manipulation of facts –claims of extinction are fallacious
Simplifying the solution –if Chinese communities cease consumption of shark fin soup, sharks will be saved
Vilifying Chinese communities for their consumption of sharks fin
Misinformation in anti-shark fin campaigns –activists fail to differentiate live and dead finning, claiming all sharks are live finned. Live finning is illegal and condemned by the industry
Images used by activists are orchestrated
2. Questions benefits of ecotourism for local populations
3. Banning sharks fin deprives poor communities of income...
Seafood traders, hotels and restaurants were hesitant to speak to me, as they were concerned that I was an undercover shark activist. Susan, a guest relations officer of one of the hotels I approached, informed me that her colleague had experienced an incident where an activist pretending to be a potential customer had obtained information about the hotel’s seafood source and had subsequently added the hotel to a blacklist... NGOs were similarly concerned that I could be working for shark trading groups, trying to uncover how much knowledge NGOs had procured on shark trading activities...
In terms of consumption, Singapore is the second largest consumers of shark fins per capita in the world (WWF, 2014)...
The anti-shark fin movement in Singapore remained relatively muted until 2009, when the Animal Concerns Research & Education Society (ACRES), a Singapore-based NGO, took the lead in launching a number of initiatives to raise public awareness about the impact of shark fin consumption on marine ecosystems...
In 2012, the anti-shark fin movement experienced an unexpected revival, reignited by a single Facebook comment made by an employee of a local seafood supplier, Thern Da Seafood.
“Screw the divers! Shark’s fin & Mola mola will also be launched at all NTUC Fairprice outlets during CNY [Chinese New Year] 2012! Exact date for launching will be out soon!...
Its incendiary nature ignited an instant uproar amongst animal activists and the public the moment it entered public consciousness on 5 January 2012, resulting in a flurry of social media activity on Facebook and Twitter. Within a few hours, the comment had generated over 200 shares and 150 comments and calls for a boycott of the supplier and supermarket chain were made, while others complained to NTUC, calling on it to be socially responsible and stop selling shark fins.
It is interesting to note that nothing was said of the Mola mola. Similar to sharks, the Mola mola are considered a delicacy in some parts of the world, including Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, and some parts of the fish are used in traditional medicine. The Mola mola are frequently caught as bluefin and swordfish bycatch and as they are regarded as nuisance and bait thieves, it has been reported that some fishermen would ‘fin’ the Mola Molaout of spite before throwing the body back into the sea (Large Pelagics Research Lab, 2011). Although the Mola mola has been categorised as “vulnerable” under the IUCN’s classification,to date, there is no regulation of the fishery or bycatch of ocean sunfish, nor any conservation groups campaigning on the Mola mola. This thus calls into the question the “specialness” of sharks and their non-human charisma in triggering people to campaign on their behalf.
In less than 24 hours, NTUC released a statement it would withdraw all products from Thern Da Seafood and it would cease the sale of shark fin products by April 2012, becoming the second major supermarket chain to initiate a “no shark’s fin”policy. At that point, the only supermarket chain that had adopted the policy was Cold Storage, which joined the World Worldlife Fund (WWF) Singapore Sustainable Seafood Group in October 2011. Within two days of NTUC Fairprice announcement, a third supermarket chain, Carrefour, followed the lead...
The controversy was thus a tipping point for the anti-shark fin movement and a momentous victory for the anti-shark fin coalition. Not only did it result in removing a key retail supplier of shark fin to consumers, it had also catapulted the issue of shark fin consumption into public discourse. As Michael Aw, founder of the “No Sharks Fins Singapore” campaign,conveyed, ‘That was the moment... to take it to the next level... and we went viral within the week’.Capitalising on the currency of the issue, NGOs and animal activists began aggressively pushing forward their anti-shark fin campaigns...
There exists a great ecological diversity across the known 468 shark species (Compagno, 2001), differing in size, behaviour, biology and abundance, as well as residing in a wide range of habitats. Yet, despite this immense diversity, most humans’ awareness of sharks tend to draw from a select few well-known species, such as the great white shark, hammerhead shark, tiger shark and whale shark.Understanding of sharks is also often conflated into the singular of “the shark” –a fictional generic shark that embodies the prominent traits of various shark species.This is observed in the ways respondents generalised shark appearance and behaviour as they talked about sharks...
Although they may not possess the sort of “anthropomorphic cuddly charisma”that is frequently found in as the subject of conservation endeavours, sharks can be considered a charismatic species, possessing several vital characteristics that elevate them in the eyes of researchers, activists and certain people, even shark fin consumers(see Chapter Two). They can be regarded as possessing a form of feral and transgressive charisma(Lorimer, 2007)...
The term keystone species used in the second quote refers to species whose presence is vital in maintaining the organisation and diversity of their ecological community, as well as emphasising their exceptional importance in relation to the rest of their community(Mills et al., 1993). Given the assumed importance of keystone species, conservation biologists have advocated that they be special targets in the efforts to maximise biodiversity protection –what is termed as focal species, as their well-being can tell us about ecosystem health more generally...
In identifying sharks as keystone species, NGOsutilise the significance of the concept to draw attention to the importance of conserving sharks, and in doing so, elevate its(moral) worthiness for protection amongst the public and policy makers. Yet, it is important to note that not all shark species qualify as keystone species. NGOs continuously stress the importance of sharks to maintaining healthy oceans, drawing upon an oft-cited modelling simulation study conducted on the Hawaiian coral reef that the removal of tiger sharks led to a ‘total andrapid crash in the abundance of tuna and jacks’, due to the explosion in seabird population, of which sharks are their main predators. However, the same study also notes that the removal of reef sharks from the same ecosystem had ‘very small effects on the biomass dynamics’ (Stevens et al., 2000: 489) and concluded that the effects of removing large numbers of top predators like sharks are still largely unknown."
Too bad the thesis doesn't take a (critical) look at the geography of environmental virtue signalling as it applies to shark's fin - it explores the motivations for consuming shark's fin, but not really the motivations for opposing its consumption, taking ethical/environmental claims at face value. Given that it is precisely liberal urban elites who are into things like "ethical" consumption, veganism and boycotting shark's fin, I would say that it is actually alienation from food production that leads to late capitalist phenomena like "more ethical means of (food) consumption)" and "ethical responsibility to distant others"