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Issues surrounding food are rarely the subject of moral panic analyses and are

generally disputed by critics whose aim is to tighten the applicability and boundaries

of the concept. Food-related issues where it has been used tend to revolve around

food scares such as BSE (Beardsworth 1990) and obesity (Monaghan, Hollands and

Pritchard 2010; Saguy and Almeling 2005). However, these cases have been

criticized for overlooking the essential ‘moral’ aspects of the panic (Thompson 1998:

Preface vii; Critcher 2008: 33), lacking the presence of a clear folk devil, or focusing on regulating one’s self as opposed to controlling others (Critcher 2008: 29).

Nonetheless, scholars continue to question whether the powerful social reactions

stirred up by food scares qualify (Murji 1999: 414) and why certain issues such as

the public outrage over Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) have not yet been

the target of analysis (Hunt 2001: 56), since it could be argued that both cases

display the essential features of a moral panic.

I contend that food issues should be brought to the center of moral panic

analysis, which will be elaborated through the dispute over generics. Cohen (2011:

242) opines that the most significant areas for possible moral panic eruptions in the future will center around “immigration, migrants, multicultural absorption, refugees,

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more amenable to violence.” Empirical cases such as the environment and, I would

add, food issues that are less receptive to analysis are so because they lack clear folk devils and are “more politically ambiguous and intellectually difficult” (Cohen 2011:

242). But the knowledge gained by applying moral panic to these cases should not be

underestimated and they should not be discarded simply because they do not

perfectly fit the moral panic mold. In fact, one of the main challenges of moral panic

analysis is to figure out how to help it mature, to alter the mold in such a way that

permits it to be useful for problematic cases such as climate change (Rohloff 2011).

Food and agricultural issues have consistently been and will continue to be highly

politicized sites of panic in the future.

The concern surrounding generics and GIs is not a moral panic in a

traditional sense. Thus, I am aware that the various empirical contexts in which the

moral panic concept has been used do not afford it perfect transferability to this

context. However, I argue that the use of food names has gained additional salience

on the global multilateral agenda because it has been framed by parallel political

constructions of panic concerning the threatening effects of the generic use of food

names on the one hand and the threat of their exclusive protection on the other. The

particular panic under consideration does not have the veritable features of a

genuinely moral panic, yet the controversy surrounding it fulfils the majority of

moral panic criteria advanced by conventional and revisionist theorists alike.

The literature indicates that certain empirical cases surrounding food persist

in puzzling scholars because they are capable of exhibiting the characteristics of a

moral panic, yet any attempt to include them within its realm of analysis has been

challenged. This begs the question whether the difficulties in applying the moral

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traditional usage of the qualifying adjective moral limits the meaning of the noun

panic by denoting particular qualities. This has previously been criticized as

exclusive and others have called for its broadened use to encompass more varied

cases (Critcher 2008: 1137). This custom has also disqualified non-moral food issues

from fitting comfortably into the moral panic framework.

Therefore, it may be possible to separate the moral from the panic because

the purpose of the adjective should be to enhance the general requirements of the

panic construction, not define it. The essence of moral panic analysis also rests in its

usefulness as a tool to interrogate the panic aspects embodied in social reactions to

conditions or events that are perceived as threatening various orders – political or

economic – and not just the moral order. Therefore, simply identifying the general

parameters of a panic does not inevitably make it a moral panic in nature and it could

be possible that not all panics are by definition moral panics. After all, it is necessary

to know more about the veritable content of a panic before applying the moral panic

concept in its entirety. Thus, the general explanation of how a panic is constructed

may be retained and new qualifying adjectives attached that better fit varied

empirical cases. Since GIs and generics are not distinctly moral issues, I will discuss

the possibility of re-configuring moral panic as a gastro-panic. This will be further

enhanced through the inclusion of the CS notion of securitization and Roland Barthes’ concept of myth, which will be further explained throughout this course.

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