ICC Collaborative Research Unit "Sophia Food Studies" Lecture Series

 

Responsible Citizens and Managing Decline: The Role of Food Governance in Japan

Stephanie Assmann (Professor, University of Hyogo)

 

 

Japan is a country with impressive health metrics, including high life expectancies, low obesity rates, and affordable health care. The Fundamental Law of Food Education, also known as the Shokuiku Law, was enacted in 2005 and addresses both adults and children. Children receive education about food preparation techniques and culinary heritage through the mandatory school lunch program and cooking classes whereas the Food Guide Spinning Top, a food diagram, provides nutritional recommendations for adults.

First, this presentation analyzes Japan's food education law as an example of food governance to shape 'responsible citizens' who assume ownership of their nutrition. Second, applying Clifford Geertz's approach of a 'thick description', this presentation captures the stark realities of a rural area in Kyushu that has been impacted by demographic change, where residents utilize culinary heritage as a strategy to foster intergenerational conviviality and manage decline.

 

Stephanie Assmann's research interests are foodways and culinary politics, life in rural Japan, and employment and diversity. She is author of Food Education and Rural Resilience in Japan. Nourishing National Identity (University of Amsterdam Press, 2025), co-editor of Japanese Foodways, Past and Present (with Eric C. Rath, 2010, University of Illinois Press) and editor of Sustainability in Contemporary Rural Japan: Challenges and Opportunities (2016, Routledge).

 

This series is organized by James Farrer (Professor of Sociology, Sophia University) and the ICC Collaborative Research Unit "Sophia Food Studies: Mobilities, Sustainability and Ethics."