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- Convenor:
-
Stephanie Assmann-Terada
(University of Hyogo)
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- Section:
- Politics and International Relations
- Sessions:
- Friday 27 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels
Short Abstract:
Food governance in Japan has oscillated between food security and internationalization. Two papers address nutrition and food education from a historical perspective whereas two papers address Japan's efforts to improve food self-sufficiency while assuming a more active role in trade relations.
Long Abstract:
From both a historical and contemporary perspective, food governance in Japan has oscillated between the need to maintain food security and the demands of internationalization. The first two papers address historical discourses on progressive nutrition and food education. The first paper examines the Imperial Government Institute for Nutrition (IGIN), the world's first government-sponsored nutrition institute, which established Japan as a leading pioneer in the fields of nutrition and science, in particular in involvement with the League of Nations. The food education campaign called shokuiku is the focus of the second paper. Food education - which is being revived as a nationwide food education campaign after the enactment of the Fundamental Law of Food Education in 2005 - originated in the Meiji period and advocated the integration of foreign foodways as a symbol of civilization and progress. The aim of the early shokuiku teachings was the construction of a national identity through building a national cuisine. The emphasis on a progressive nutrition enforced through education represented a form of governmentality which embodied Japan's quest for national strength and internationalism.
In contemporary Japan, food governance continues to respond to the need for food security and the quest to perform as a global actor in international trade relations. Caught between the demands of ensuring food security and assuming a role as an active global player, Japan is coping with low food self-sufficiency rates and imports roughly 60 percent of her food. In this vein, the third paper stresses Japan's efforts to increase food exports, and in doing so, strengthen the country's presence in various free trade agreements and in the TPP11 after the United States left the free trade alliance which has assigned Japan a more visible role in global free trade relations. The final paper shows the difficulties that Japan is facing between the need to assume a more active role in foreign agricultural investments and the necessity to increase national food self-sufficiency. The four papers address the continuity and the significance of food governance in Japan's efforts to maintain national interests and simultaneously respond to the demands of the globalization
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 27 August, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
In 2005, Japan launched a food education campaign called shokuiku. Through tracing the historical roots, I argue that the food education campaign represents a form of governmentality, which seeks to improve the nation's dietary habits and links national identity to foodways.
Paper long abstract:
The enactment of the Fundamental Law of Food Education in 2005 led to the launch of a nationwide food education campaign called shokuiku, which is now an integral part of school lunch programs and nutritional guidelines for adults. A closer look at the campaign reveals that shokuiku is a historical concept and needs to be seen in a broader context of culinary politics that aimed to enable Japanese citizens to cope with the demands of modernity but also pursued a nationalistic agenda. The early shokuiku teachings originated in the Meiji period and viewed food education as part of a holistic educational concept, which stressed self-cultivation, discipline, familial conviviality, an appreciation of local food but also included foreign foodways. In contrast, the current shokuiku campaign advocates a return to an indigenous - and supposedly healthier - food fare as a way to contain globalization. Through tracing the historical roots of shokuiku, I argue that the revival of this educational concept represents a form of governmentality, which seeks to improve the nation's dietary habits and simultaneously evokes a strong sense of national identity linked to foodways.
Paper short abstract:
Japan's new strategy to increase food exports has led to a significant reconceptualization of the notion of national food security. The aim of this study is to examine the new concept of food security and how it affected Japan's economic diplomacy in recent years.
Paper long abstract:
In Japan, the concept of food security has been historically linked to that of food self-sufficiency. During the whole postwar period, Japan's efforts to achieve national food security were concentrated on the increase of domestic production and on the promotion of consumption of local food among Japanese, while protecting the agrifood sector with high trade barriers. It is no coincidence that agriculture and food related issues have been the major sticking points in Japan's negotiations of EPAs/FTAs with partner countries. However, as the constant decline of Japan's food self-sufficiency rate proves, the results of this strategy have been unsatisfactory. In recent years, we have witnessed a significant change in Japan's approach to food security. In August 2013 the government outlined the strategy for incrementing the export of food products and, subsequently, in 2016, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs defined "food export" as one of the main objectives of Japan's economic diplomacy, showing a marked shift in the way the government approaches food security. The aim of this study is to examine the recent changes of the very notion of "food security" in Japan, focusing on the implications of this new conceptualisation on Japan's economic diplomacy. More specifically, we argue that this new approach can explain the recent driving role that Japan played in the negotiations of EPAs/FTAs, such as TPP11 or EU-Japan EPA, as they are seen as a way to increase food exports.
Paper short abstract:
Focusing on the Imperial Government Institute for Nutrition (1920-40), I argue that interwar Japan's national nutrition campaign (eiyō rikkoku) simultaneously embodied Japan's modern quest for national strength and, through engagement with the League of Nations, etc., persistent internationalism.
Paper long abstract:
One characteristic of modern nations has been concerted interest in disciplining, improving, and mobilizing the bodies of the populace. This reflects not only the rise of modern governmentality and increased attention to projects of visual, spectacular civilization such as hygienic modernity, but also a distinctly modern biopolitics predicated on the linkage of individual health and national cultural, economic, and military vitality. Biopower promised to maximize the efficiency of individuals, families, communities, corporations, etc., by apprehending, quantifying, and optimizing the population's energies. By this alchemy, food increasingly became nutrition, and nutrition science emerged as a critical technology for documenting, monitoring, and intervening in public health. Similarly, the components of society―individuals, families, communities, corporations, etc.—became the objects of quantifiable technologies of knowledge, subject to the exercise of biopower to maximize output efficiencies.
In this context, this paper explores the early history of nutrition science and nutritional activism in interwar Japan, focusing on the role of the Imperial Government Institute for Nutrition (IGIN). I argue that the IGIN, the world's first government-sponsored nutrition institute, was a manifestation and key instrument of Japan's state-led programs of national strengthening and national nutrition as civilization, but also of internationalism (or at least internationalist nationalism). The IGIN led Japan's interwar program of national nutrition (eiyō rikkoku). The IGIN's successes in science and dietary reform were viewed as a triumph, an indication that Japan had surpassed the West in the most fundamentally modern and rational of pursuits, science—and specifically nutrition, the science of building a better human, and therefore nation. Simultaneously, especially through involvement with the League of Nations, the IGIN was a major contributor to the international development of nutrition science, and went beyond the "international minimum" described by Jessamyn Abel even after Japan left the League in 1933.