Sensing safety in Singapore, 1900-2015

Food safety has material, symbolic, experiential, and sensory elements that create ways of thinking and acting, resulting in knowledge that is embedded in institutional practices and discourses. This knowledge — contextual, contested, and changing — shapes the discourse and practice around the perception and regulation of food safety. Taking the city-state of Singapore as an example, this paper draws together elements of food safety discursive practice, culturally and temporally specific symbols of safety, with its sensory experience to show how governmental, cultural, and private actors have worked across the Singaporean food system to create “senses of safety.”