Description
Book SynopsisExamines the process by which notions about what is safe to eat were formulated after the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima. The book's central argument is that as citizens informed themselves about potential risks, they also became savvier in their assessment of the government's handling of the crisis.
Trade Review[T]his book is a beautifully written and easy to read account of the challenges Japanese society has faced by the radioactive contamination of food in the first three years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Nicolas Sternsdorff-Cisterna provides manifold insights into the perspectives of concerned consumers and farmers in post-Fukushima Japan, and introduces their strategies for consuming and producing safe food on an everyday base. Scholars and students of Japan and food safety, as well as the general public will benefit from the many examples and rich descriptions of individuals’ practices in a post-disaster society. Sternsdorff-Cisterna’s book sensitively depicts and brilliantly analyzes the precariousness of life in Japan after the dangerous 2011 nuclear plant accident. His concept of scientific citizenship is a major contribution to formulating the social relations, political dynamics, and cultural categories of risk and safety that emerge following the mega-disasters that we humans bring upon ourselves. Food Safety after Fukushima reveals the fallout of Japan’s nuclear meltdown to have been not only radioactive but also deeply social. In Tokyo, fear of radiation’s indiscernible threat—and people’s skepticism of the state’s ability to issue reliable safety assurances—eroded longstanding trust relations between farmers and food shoppers and led women to re-write the rules of "good" mothering. With sensitivity and great insight, Nicolas Sternsdorff-Cisterna details how residents, armed with Geiger counters and newfound political purpose, generate and circulate knowledge about radiation—enacting "scientific citizenship"—to rebuild the social relations that constitute food safety.
