The Metamorphosis of Excess: ‘Rubbish Houses’ and the Imagined Trajectory of Things in Post-Bubble Japan

The bursting of the economic bubble in the 1990s shook the very foundation of the post-war economic 'miracle' and marked the beginning of a gradual shift in the environmental consciousness of the Japanese. Yet, it by no means removed consumption from the pivotal position it occupied within Japanese society. Consuming Life in Post-Bubble Japan argues that consumption in Japan today is no longer simply a component of everyday economic activities, but rather a reflection of a society guided by the 'logic of late capitalism'. The volume pins down the contradictory nature of the setting in which consuming occurs in Japan today: the veneration of material comfort and convenience on the one hand, and the new rhetoric of recycling and energy conservation on the other. Theoretical insights developed as part of an art-historical enquiry, such as notions of socially engaged art and its critique, offer a new paradigm for investigating this dilemma. By combining case studies analysing the production and consumption of contemporary art with ethnographic material related to ordinary commodities and shopping, this volume provides a novel, transdisciplinary approach to exploring how a 'society of consumers' operates in post-bubble Japan and how contemporary life is a 'consuming project'

Sushi in the United States, 1945-1970

Sushi first achieved widespread popularity in the United States in the mid-1960s. Many accounts of sushi’s US establishment foreground the role of a small number of key actors, yet underplay the role of a complex web of large-scale factors that provided the context in which sushi was able to flourish. This article critically reviews existing literature, arguing that sushi’s US popularity arose from contingent, long-term, and gradual processes. It examines US newspaper accounts of sushi during 1945–1970, which suggest the discursive context for US acceptance of sushi was considerably more propitious than generally acknowledged. Using California as a case study, the analysis also explains conducive social and material factors, and directs attention to the interplay of supply- and demand-side forces in the favorable positioning of this “new” food. The article argues that the US establishment of sushi can be understood as part of broader public acceptance of Japanese cuisine

From malnutrition to radiation Reviewing food security and food safety in Japan (1945-2013)

Abstract This paper looks into three aspects of food security in Japan from the 1940s to the present. It starts with the food shortage during the immediate post-war period, then moves on to the issue of a dramatically declining food self-sufficiency ratio and the safety of imported food, and finally concludes with the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake that led to anxieties about radioactive contamination of domestically-produced food

‘Unpacking Food and Drink’

The special theme of Worldwide Waste Journal that interrogates the social, economic, political, cultural and aesthetic aspects of packaging, in its contemporary and historical dimensions

Chinese food threatening the Japanese table : changing perceptions of imported Chinese food in Japan

Stating that imported Chinese food has a negative image in Japan is neither new nor surprising. Conventional explanations of this phenomenon focus on the litany of food scandals associated with imported Chinese food, together with a near-constant wave of scandals in China itself, which have been subject to saturation media coverage in Japan since the turn of the century. However, this chapter argues that the hyperbolic public and media response is disproportionate to the food safety risks associated with the consumption of Chinese food. This chapter starts by assessing two common explanations for the widespread negative perceptions of Chinese food: (1) the development of a consumer awareness in Japan and (2) a heightening risk of consuming Chinese imported foods in the 2000s. The chapter then outlines potential alternative factors, which have also played a key role in the increasingly negative perceptions of Chinese food imports. While there has been an overall increase in the number of reported Chinese food scandals since the 2000s, broader Japanese perceptions of China, the related nature of media coverage of events in China, and the changing nature of Chinese food incidents, among others, are central factors in the development of the perception of a Chinese food threat

Japan in the International Food Regimes: Understanding Japanese Food Self-sufficiency Decline

Japan’s food self-sufficiency rate was 79% in 1960, but it fell down rapidly and reached 39% in 2011, the lowest among major industrialized countries. The mechanisms of this decline have been mostly explained as the result of the drastic change of dietary habits under a rapid economic growth, since the 1960s: as the economy grew steadily, the consumption of domestically produced food (e.g. rice) has decreased, while the consumption of imported food (e.g. meat, dairy products, oils) has grown constantly (i.e. ‘Bennet’s law’). Yet, evidences suggest that Japan’s foreign policy choices and international environment considerably influenced Japan’s low food self-sufficiency rate. Relying on ‘international food regime theory’, this analysis aims to shed some light on the international political factors that affected Japan’s dependence. This chapter will show how national security interests and international norms and rules that underpin the food regime have played an important in determining Japan’s low self-sufficiency rate