Food after Fukushima: Scientific Citizenship and Risk in Japan

Abstract

This dissertation examines questions of citizenship and risk after the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan. I argue that for sectors of the population concerned with the health effects of radiation exposure, the disaster motivated them to reconsider their relationship to the Japanese state. I introduce the concept of scientific citizenship to explore the dynamics whereby ordinary people amassed enough knowledge to critically assess expert advice and form conclusions about the intentions and ability of the state to safeguard them. Crucially, citizenship in this context is not a mode of engagement with the state where citizens seek its protection, but rather a way of circumventing it to ensure the health of future generations. It is inscribed in the decision to find alternative modes of ensuring the basic rights to life and health above and beyond the work of the state. Based on two years of in-depth fieldwork in the aftermath of the disaster, I explore ethnographically the work of groups of mothers, farmers and experts who came together to share and disseminate knowledge about radiation in an effort to protect their own and each other's children from radiation.