Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

Through policy analysis and ethnographic field work, I explore the objectives of nutrition educators who equip children and adults with food literacy and inspire resilience among aging citizens in declining regions with the aim to alleviate marginalization.

Paper long abstract

Governmental nutrition education campaigns exist globally, but Japan's food education law, enacted in 2005 during the administration of Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi and known as shokuiku, remains unique for integrating food education into school lunch programs and adult education. Drawing on Michel Foucault's concepts of governmentality and the technologies of the self, this presentation reveals the underlying power mechanisms behind the shokuiku campaign, firstly at the level of a comprehensive policy framework, and secondly in its implementation in rural and declining areas. Through governmental initiatives such as the nationwide school lunch program, the actors of the shokuiku campaign, who represent and implement the shokuiku policy framework, namely nutrition educators, farmers, and volunteers, cooperate in advocating a dietary ideal based on the Japanese-style dietary life and the use of regional agricultural products to pupils. A "healthy" diet is based on Japanese foodways (washoku) and links the ideal of a balanced diet to the pursuit of national and regional identity. In rural Japan, the purpose and objectives of the shokuiku campaign differ fundamentally. Nutrition educators, volunteers, and local farmers champion resilience and food self-sufficiency to alleviate the repercussions of depopulation, economic decline, and the increasing marginalization of regions characterized by aging and outmigration. Based on extensive ethnographic field work in a small town in rural Kyushu, I explore community events such as The Long Table, an intergenerational cooking workshop, and cooking classes tailored to the needs of school children and mature adults, that foster conviviality through food.

The objective of food governance on the national level is to educate responsible adults who have acquired thorough knowledge about maintaining a balanced diet and developed food literacy as a technology of the self. In contrast, the objectives of food governance in rural areas are to foster resilience and counter the marginalization of declining regions through a form of life politics seeking to search for creative solutions to sustain and improve life, but at the same time to cooperate with attempts of the national government to enhance the quality of life at the periphery.

Send message to Authors

Paper short abstract

Through four examples from public health-related policies, we illustrate the range of governance tools used in Japan today and show how they are productively combined. Under what conditions are Japanese policymakers likely to adopt informal versus legalistic tools of governance?

Paper long abstract

Tools of governance may range along a continuum from “soft law” to “hard law” but often they also coexist, even within the same piece of legislation, and can complement each other. Through the paradigmatic case of Japan, this paper challenges the common but over-simplified dichotomy between “soft” and “hard” law. Japan employs various tools of governance, ranging from unenforceable recommendations to binding clauses. Yet, the literature on Japanese governance tends to focus on administrative guidance, bureaucratic informalism, and other “soft law” tools. Informal tools of governance were seen as fostering cooperative relationships that encouraged compliance in a cost-effective manner. While these analyses of Japanese governance were not wrong, this paper suggests that they are more of a caricature that fails to capture the interesting coexistence and complementarity of soft and hard law and other tools of governance.

Through four examples from public health-related policies, we illustrate the range of governance tools used in Japan today and show how they are productively combined. We examine regulations related to food and nutrition education, secondhand smoke prevention, covid prevention, and bicycle helmets. Regulations existed in the first two for at least ten years, whereas the latter two issues are newer. While in each case governance measures aim to induce individual citizens’ behavioral changes, the consequences of such behavioral change will be felt by society at large. Citizens should thus have a strong interest in the success of the governance approach employed. Drawing on these four illustrative mini-cases, our paper will detangle patterns of governance and analyze the conditions under which Japanese policymakers are likely to adopt informal versus legalistic tools of governance. Through a typology of different tools of governance, we strive to contribute to our understanding of state-citizen interactions and more specifically regulatory practices and mechanisms in contemporary Japan.

Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

This presentation explores the complex dynamics of surrogacy and egg donation in contemporary Japan. It identifies key agencies involved in these processes, analyzes the services they offer, and presents preliminary findings from interviews with individuals utilizing or contemplating these services.

Paper long abstract

This paper introduces a new project that investigates the complex legal and social dynamics surrounding surrogacy and egg donation in Japan, which generally exist in tension between hyper-libertarian ideologies of choice and critiques regarding the exploitation and commodification of women's bodies. The study seeks to highlight the intricacies of women's choices within a context marked by neoliberal and increasingly transhumanist discourses of self-responsibility, as well as the implications of reproductive technologies embedded in pronatalist policies in contemporary Japan.

Despite the Japanese Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology's opposition to surrogacy and egg donation, resulting in a de facto limitation on both practices, there is no legal framework that either legalizes or prohibits them. The 2020 “Act on Assisted Reproductive Technology” has not provided any clarification, despite consistent demands of researchers and activist groups. It reinstates that a woman who gives birth, regardless of genetic contribution, is recognized as the child's mother, potentially expanding the scope for egg donation while, at least officially, continuing to restrict surrogacy. Nevertheless, there has been a noticeable rise in transnational agencies offering a range of reproductive services, including surrogacy, to the Japanese public.

In this presentation, I will address the ongoing debates and research related to this ambiguous situation, identify agencies involved and their services, and present initial findings from interviews with individuals using or considering these services as “customers” or “vendors.”

The research employs Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), informed by Foucault’s theories on power and knowledge, which are valuable for understanding how language and discourse contribute to the governance of individuals and populations. Simultaneously, it critiques these very theories and postmodern concepts regarding bodies and materiality as they relate to the phenomenon of transnational surrogacy and egg donation.

Send message to Authors

Paper short abstract

This paper analyzes Japanese English Foreign Language students’ comprehension of desexed terminologies in English and discusses the findings and implications in postmodern contexts. It proffers ways that neoliberal governmentality is extended into linguistic subjects.

Paper long abstract

This paper presents an interdisciplinary project that dissects the epistemologies of desexed language in an English-speaking and Japanese context through the question: how does desexed language affect comprehension among Japanese English Foreign Language (EFL) learners?

Many countries have recently seen polarized discussions about the meaning of biological sex and gender, with some adopting a system that prioritizes gender identity over biological sex in socio-legal classifications. Theorizations in feminist studies originally aimed at deconstructing gender as a set of meanings and power relations associated with biological

sex have increasingly moved towards questioning the scientific underpinnings of sex itself.

Advancing these ideas are postmodernist proffers that reality is constituted through discourse (Foucault 1978-1990, Butler 1990), a result of which is the ongoing dissemination of desexed language (e.g. person with a cervix in place of woman) as a

purported modern enterprise of equality. Here, language functions as a mechanism of state- sanctioned and self-imposed governance with linguistic terms increasingly being used to represent ‘‘inclusion’’ through the replacement of specific, scientifically accurate speech (e.g. chest-feeding in place of breastfeeding), resulting in a modality of moral-linguistic

governmentality that normalizes an idea of an ‘‘ethical’’ and ‘‘progressive’’ speaker. Following this trend in deconstructivism, language policies in education may risk becoming a technology of control (Foucault), while also obscuring concepts for language learners who are unfamiliar with this type of postmodern language use. Cautious of the Foucaultian

notion that discourse constitutes reality, this paper uses Foucault’s ideas of governmentality to expose technologies of power that chisel speakers into self-disciplining subjects through linguistic normalization. Accordingly, this paper discusses ways that neoliberal and postmodern governmentality is extended into linguistic subjects who internalize and

reproduce ideological positions through language.

Further informed by Foucault’s theories on power and knowledge, this paper analyzes Japanese EFL learners’ comprehension of desexed terminologies and aims to discuss if efforts to standardize desexed language may reproduce neo-colonial hierarchies of language authority.