Description
Book SynopsisAya Hirata Kimura traces the experiences of citizen scientists—particularly mothers—who after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster collected scientific data that revealed radiation-contaminated food, showing how the Japanese government used neoliberal and traditional gender ideologies to discount and socially sanction these women and their findings.
Trade Review“Addressing this post-3/11 environment through rich engagement with anthropological subjects, Kimura offers a rigorous theoretical analysis that extends far beyond the circumstances of Fukushima…. A significant contribution to the research areas of science and technology studies, post-feminism, neoliberalism, food studies, nuclear disaster and Japanese society.”
-- Joel Neville Anderson * International Feminist Journal of Politics *
"Kimura gives a full account of the complexity of the issues she addresses by creating cross-disciplinary linkages that help readers to see the radioactive contamination of food in post-Fukushima Japan from new and multiple perspectives. . . . This book stands out because it reminds us that scholarship is never objective, that social science scholars have to position themselves and that the thin line between scholarship and activism is often blurred. The greatest achievement of this book, however, is to give the marginalized women and citizen scientists a voice outside of Japan." -- Cornelia Reiher * Pacific Affairs *
"
Radiation Brain Mom and Citizen Scientists makes a valuable contribution to feminist studies, science and technology studies, and sociological explorations of contemporary Japan. Readers will appreciate Kimura's keen observations and theoretical competence, which together give voice to psychosocially disoriented citizens – women in particular – who are confronting uncertain risks in contemporary society." -- Ryo Morimoto * Monumenta Nipponica *
“
Radiation Brain Moms is an empirically grounded and theoretically sophisticated important piece of scholarship. This study will challenge and reward scholars; graduate students and general readers interested in contemporary Japanese society in the aftermath of the March 11 disasters; anthropologists, sociologists, and historians of disasters; people interested in social studies of science and technology; and those engaged in gender and feminist science studies.” -- Tsipy Ivry * Journal of Japanese Studies *
Table of ContentsAbbreviations ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
1. "Moms with Radiation Brain": Gendered Food Policing in the Name of Science 27
2. Engineering of Citizens 55
3. School Lunches: Science, Motherhood, and Joshi Power 78
4. Citizen Radiation-Measuring Organizations 104
5. The Temporality of Contaminants 132
Conclusion 155
Notes 159
References 173
Index 201
