Abstract:

Based on ethnographic research conducted in the summer of 2006, this paper attempts to examine local responses to the imminent threat of avian flu during the crisis within Haining County of Zhejiang Province. During our field investigation, we conducted interviews with officials from the local medical institutions (including the hospitals, the animal husbandry and vet station, and clinics), bureaus of public health and agro-economy and visited chicken farms, restaurants, and farming households. The intimate perspectives gained from our informants and consultants were crucial for us to develop a complete picture of what actually happened on the ground. We intend to bring multiple voices to bear on the issue of epidemic prevention thereby revealing how different local actors perceived avian flu threats and reacted in different ways. Our paper addresses the following factors that commonly structured the perceptions and actions of different social actors in the area: the changing mode of information sharing and communication in the local communities; the official drive to professionalize the emergency response management system in the county; and the coping mechanisms that helped the villagers and town residents survive the crisis. Our research suggests that the collective survival consciousness was translated into a spirit of voluntarism which had long disappeared after de-collectivization started more than two decades ago. Most importantly, the adaptive wisdom embedded in local memories demonstrated its operational worth as the most resourceful knowledge base for ordinary farmers to deal with food shortage, famine, plague, and future pandemics.

Key words: avian flu threats, professionalism, collective survival consciousness, adaptive wisdom