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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.