Surviving the crisis: Adaptive wisdom, coping mechanisms and local responses to avian influenza threats in Haining, China

Abstract

Based on ethnographic research conducted in the summer of 2006, this paper examines local responses to the imminent threat of avian flu in Haining County of Zhejiang Province. During our field investigation, we conducted interviews with officials from local medical institutions (including the hospitals, the animal husbandry and veterinary station, and health clinics), to bureaus of public health and agro-economy. We also visited chicken farms, restaurants and farming households. We address the following factors that commonly structured the perceptions and actions of different social actors in the area of study: The changing mode of information-sharing and communication practices 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 to weather the storm of avian flu. Our field research suggests that collective survival consciousness was translated into a spirit of voluntarism during the crisis. One important practical lesson we have learned from this study is that the adaptive wisdom embedded in local memories demonstrated its operational worth as a resourceful knowledge base for ordinary farmers to deal with food shortage, famine, plague and future pandemics.