Nicolas Sternsdorff-Cisterna, Food Safety after Fukushima : Scientific Citizenship and the Politics of Risk

Even after two years of living in Japan, thinking, studying, and researching radiation, I never closed the gap between anzen and anshin in my own life.The two terms always existed in a productive tension, never to be fully resolved" (138).Nicolas Sternsdorff-Cisterna's final observations about his own experience of the fieldwork for this thought-provoking book sum up the key concern of the book: how to make sense of subjective notions of food safety and negotiate the notions of scientific evidence (anzen) and the affective idea of safety (anshin).Food is a fascinating arena to explore as it combines multilayered aspects of human life, such as nutrition, sensuality, aesthetics, provenance.The author specifically focuses on the growing sense of insecurity that resulted from the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011.Drawing on Aihwa Ong's notion of flexible citizenship (2006), Sternsdorff-Cisterna proposes the concept of scientific citizenship, "a transformation in the relationship between citizens and the state that is catalyzed and mediated by the acquisition of scientific literacy" (3).This multi-sited ethnography portrays the attempts of a broad range of citizens in their daily lives to "amass enough knowledge to critically assess expert advice and deciding, in this case, to circumvent the State's expertise in order to protect the health and lives of current and future generations" (3).The author contends that the events of March 2011 were "a catalyst that encouraged some people in Japan to acquire scientific literacy they could use to critically evaluate the state's handling of the crisis" (5).During twenty-seven months of fieldwork between 2011 and 2013, with follow-up visits during 2014-2016, the sociocultural anthropologist attended over seventy study sessions about radiation and food, and he conducted participant observation at a food co-op, informal interviews, and sixty in-depth interviews with farmers, activists, retailers, radiation experts, and government officials.The author was based in Tokyo and took twelve research trips to affected areas in the northeastern region of Japan known as Tohoku.This book consists of six chapters.Chapter 1 discusses the notion of scientific citizenship and risk, outlining the theoretical concepts underpinning the book and the background of the research.