Paper short abstract:

By tracing how broad-scale processes of global-local mobilities shape and are shaped by rural-urban imaginaries, this paper investigates the role of food tourism in reifying fixed, static images of rural foods, rural places and by extension, rural people.

Paper long abstract:

Akita, Japan is known (mostly to domestic tourists) for rice and for snow. Akita’s tourism website contains various images and links to foods and experiences that are ‘local’, ‘authentic’ or can only be found in Akita. European or American tourists looking to embark on a ‘real’ tour of Japan seek out small towns in Akita - Oga, Kakunodate - towns that market themselves as offering intimate and authentic experiences of rural Japan. By tracing how broad-scale processes of global-local mobilities shape and are shaped by rural-urban imaginaries, this paper investigates the role of food tourism in reifying fixed, static images of rural foods, rural places and by extension, rural people. By looking at ethnographic vignettes around the historical and contemporary preparation of food as well as local relationships to ‘Akita foods’, this paper challenges the associations between place, locality and authenticity. It asks: What does it mean to have local foods that can be reproduced outside of a particular locality? Are foods commodities that actually need to be eaten to be associated as being from a particular place? Are ‘local’ foods real or imagined foods and what are their relationships to real or imagined places?