Abstract: In this presentation I will provide an overview of research undertaken for my Society in Science – Branco Weiss fellowship. Based on fieldwork in China and the Philippines, my project for this fellowship focuses on the trends and effects of Chinese seafood consumption. I will outline major trends in different components of seafood commodity chains that are imported into China: governance, consumption, trade and production. This will include discussions of trends in luxury seafood consumption in China (including for shark fin), the status of sustainability and traceability issues in the Chinese market, recent research on the live reef food fish trade in the Philippines, and a summary of where I hope to take this research in the next three years of the fellowship.

Biography: Michael is a Research Fellow in Program 1 at the ARC CoE for Coral Reef Studies. He is an anthropologist whose research focuses on the social and political aspects of fisheries trade, livelihoods and governance. He has conducted ethnographic research with fishers, traders and officials on these topics in China, the Philippines, Malaysia and Solomon Islands. For the past two years he has been based in Beijing researching Chinese seafood trade and consumption.