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January 10, 2012

[SSJ: 7089] DIJ Social Science Study Group. Thomas Huellein. The Project "Health Japan", January 25, 2012

From: Barbara Holthus
Date: 2012/01/10

Dear All,
as a reminder: Wednesday, January 11, 2012, 6:30 p.m.
will be the first DIJ Social Science Study Group of the New Year. Speaker is Patricia L. Maclachlan, University of Texas at Austin. Her presentation is entitled: "The People's Post Office: The History and Politics of the Japanese Postal System, 1871-2010".


The following DIJ Social Science Study Group will take place on Wednesday, January 25, 2012, at 6:30 p.m. at the German Institute for Japanese Studies Tokyo.
Speaker will be Thomas Huellein, University of Zurich

He will give a presentation about
The Project “Healthy Japan 21”: Normative Changes to the Idea of Health


The project “Healthy Japan 21”, running from 2000 to 2010 and under the auspices of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Education, as well as companies, foundations, and NPOs, was meant to be a “movement” to promote ways to prolong the healthy period of peoples'
lives. Its claim is to bundle Japanese society together in one joint attempt to create a new idea of “health”.
Health shall no longer be perceived as something that ought to be protected, but rather as something that must be actively produced, by focusing on ways to develop healthy lifestyles and reduce risk factors for diseases, such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.
This talk, part of my PhD project, examines the „Healthy Japan 21“ project as an example of normative health policy, a form of policy making that does not only use incentives and sanctions to achieve its goals, but tries to gain influence on the perceptions and definition of health itself.
By means of Foucauldian discourse analysis, I explore the idea of “health” in contemporary Japanese society, focusing on the following questions. How are statements or utterances about health structured within the public health campaigns? What is the order of knowledge that allows certain statements about health and prohibits others, also taking into consideration the changed legal framework of health policy?

Thomas Huellein is a Ph.D. student at the Institute of East Asian Studies (Japanese Studies section) at the University of Zurich. Currently, he is conducting his fieldwork in Japan on a DIJ grant.

The DIJ Social Science Study Group is a forum for young scholars and Ph.D. candidates in the field of Social Sciences organized by Maren Godzik and Barbara Holthus.

All are welcome to attend, but registration
(godzik[at]dijtokyo.org) is appreciated.


German Institute for Japanese Studies Tokyo (DIJ) Jōchi Kioizaka Bldg. 2F, 7-1 Kioichō, Chiyoda-ku, Tōkyō 102-0094, Phone: 03-3222-5077 For a map please refer to www.dijtokyo.org

Barbara G. Holthus, Ph.D.
Senior Research Fellow, Social Science Section German Institute for Japanese Studies Tokyo Jochi Kioizaka Bldg. 2F, 7-1 Kioicho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
102-0094
Ph: 0081-3-3222-5942
E-mail: holthus[at]dijtokyo.org, barbaraholthus[at]gmail.com , http://www.dijtokyo.org

Approved by ssjmod at 01:57 PM