Peter Ho – författare

Case Studies in Food Safety and Environmental Health, the sixth volume of the ISEKI-Food book series, presents food safety concepts and issues in a practical and applied framework for use in the classroom.

The book is divided into three main sections:

These sections can be used individually or together as a series to discuss a range of food safety issues. Section One covers specific food safety issues such as acrylamide, nitrate contamination, residual pesticides, Clostridium botulinum, and botulism. Section Two discusses the historical perspective of food safety issues. Section Three looks at food safety from the standpoint of the researcher: examining food safety issues at hand while figuring out how to approach their investigation. Each chapter has a summary of the issues discussed, objectives, and discussion questions focused on the major issues and other relevant factors.

The ISEKI-Food book series is a collection where various aspects of food safety and environmental issues are introduced and reviewed by scientists specializing in the field. In all of the books a special emphasis is placed on including case studies applicable to each specific topic. The books are intended for graduate students and senior level undergraduate students as well as professionals and researchers interested in food safety and environmental issues applicable to food safety.

"ISEKI-Food" is an acronym for "Integrating Safety and Environmental Knowledge Into Food Studies". Participants in the ISEKI-Food network, coordinated by Professor Cristina Silva at The Catholic University of Portugal, come from 29 countries in Europe and most of the institutes and universities involved with Food Science education at the university level in Europe are represented. Some international companies and non teaching institutions have also participated in the network. The main objectives of ISEKI-Food are to improve the harmonization of studies in food science and engineering in Europe and to develop and adapt food science curricula emphasizing the inclusion of safety and environmental topics.

In chemical engineering and related fields, a unit operation is a basic step in a process. For example in milk processing, homogenization, pasteurization, chilling, and packaging are each unit operations which are connected to create the overall process. A process may have many unit operations to obtain the desired product. The book will cover many different unit operations as they apply to food processing.

In recent years China has been remarkable in achieving extraordinary economic transformation, yet without fundamental political change. To many observers this would seem to imply a weakness in Chinese civil society. However, though the idea of democracy as multitudes of citizens taking to the streets may be attractive, it is simultaneously misleading as it disregards the nature of political change taking place in China today: a gradual shift towards a polity adapted to a pluralist society. At the same time, one may wonder what the limited political space implies for the development of a social movement in China. This book explores this question by focusing on one of the most active areas of Chinese civil society: the environment.

China’s Embedded Activism argues that China’s semi-authoritarian limitations on the freedom of association and speech, coupled with increased social spaces for civic action has created a milieu in which activism occurs in an embedded fashion. The semi-authoritarian atmosphere is restrictive of, but paradoxically, also conducive to nationwide, collective action with less risk of social instability and repression at the hand of the governing elite.

Rich in case studies about environmental civic organizations in China, and written by a team of international experts on social movements, NGOs, democratization, and civil society, this book addresses a wide readership of students, scholars and professionals interested in development, geography and environment, political change, and contemporary Chinese society.

In recent years China has been remarkable in achieving extraordinary economic transformation, yet without fundamental political change. To many observers this would seem to imply a weakness in Chinese civil society. However, though the idea of democracy as multitudes of citizens taking to the streets may be attractive, it is simultaneously misleading as it disregards the nature of political change taking place in China today: a gradual shift towards a polity adapted to a pluralist society. At the same time, one may wonder what the limited political space implies for the development of a social movement in China. This book explores this question by focusing on one of the most active areas of Chinese civil society: the environment.

China’s Embedded Activism argues that China’s semi-authoritarian limitations on the freedom of association and speech, coupled with increased social spaces for civic action has created a milieu in which activism occurs in an embedded fashion. The semi-authoritarian atmosphere is restrictive of, but paradoxically, also conducive to nationwide, collective action with less risk of social instability and repression at the hand of the governing elite.

Rich in case studies about environmental civic organizations in China, and written by a team of international experts on social movements, NGOs, democratization, and civil society, this book addresses a wide readership of students, scholars and professionals interested in development, geography and environment, political change, and contemporary Chinese society.

Developmental Dilemmas singles out land as an object of study and places it in the context of one of the world''s largest and most populous countries undergoing institutional reform: the People''s Republic of China. The book demonstrates that private property protected by law, the principle of ''getting-the-prices-right'', and the emergence of effectively functioning markets are the outcome of a given society''s historical development and institutional fabric. Peter Ho argues that the successful creation of new institutions hinges in part on choice and timing in relation to the particular constellation of societal, economic, political and cultural parameters. Disregarding these could result in rising inequality, bad land stewardship, and the eruption of land-related grievances.

Developmental Dilemmas singles out land as an object of study and places it in the context of one of the world''s largest and most populous countries undergoing institutional reform: the People''s Republic of China. The book demonstrates that private property protected by law, the principle of ''getting-the-prices-right'', and the emergence of effectively functioning markets are the outcome of a given society''s historical development and institutional fabric. Peter Ho argues that the successful creation of new institutions hinges in part on choice and timing in relation to the particular constellation of societal, economic, political and cultural parameters. Disregarding these could result in rising inequality, bad land stewardship, and the eruption of land-related grievances.

Since the late 1970s, China has experienced the most rapid social and economic changes in world history. Over 200 million rural inhabitants were lifted out of absolute poverty and tens of millions became wealthier than the average urban resident.This book offers an authoritative and in-depth analysis of the social and economic changes that have swept through the Chinese countryside. Topics covered include: land tenure and rural labour, social welfare, poverty alleviation, rural resettlement, food security, natural resource management and rural industrialization.

Since the late 1970s, China has experienced the most rapid social and economic changes in world history. Over 200 million rural inhabitants were lifted out of absolute poverty and tens of millions became wealthier than the average urban resident.This book offers an authoritative and in-depth analysis of the social and economic changes that have swept through the Chinese countryside. Topics covered include: land tenure and rural labour, social welfare, poverty alleviation, rural resettlement, food security, natural resource management and rural industrialization.

From a neo-liberal, neo-classical paradigm, secure, formal and private property rights are crucial to fostering sustained development. Institutions that fail to respond to shifting socio-economic opportunities are thus forced to make new arrangements. The enigma is posed by developments on the ground. Why would the removal of authoritarian institutions during the Arab Spring or Iraq War not increase market efficiency but rather cause the reverse, while China and India, despite persisting insecure, informal and common institutions, featured sustained growth? This collection posits that understanding these paradoxes requires a refocusing from form to function, detached from normative assumptions about institutional appearance. In so doing, three things are accomplished. First, starting from case studies on land, it is ascertained that the argument can be meaningfully extended to labour, capital and beyond. Second, the argument validates the ‘Credibility Thesis’ – that is, once institutions persist, they fulfil a function. Third, the collection studies ‘development, broadly construed’, by including the modes of production and beyond, the rural and urban, the developed and developing. This is why it reviews property rights from China and India, to Turkey, Mexico and Malaysia, covering issues such as customary rights and privatization, mining and pastoralism, dam-building and irrigation, but also state-owned banks, trade unions and notaries.

This book was originally published as a special issue of The Journal of Peasant Studies.