Radiation Brain Moms and Citizen Scientists: The Gender Politics of Food Contamination after Fukushima

by Aya Hirata Kimura

Following the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster in 2011 many concerned citizens—particularly mothers—were unconvinced by the Japanese government’s assurances that the country’s food supply was safe. They took matters into their own hands, collecting their own scientific data that revealed radiation-contaminated food. In Radiation Brain Moms and Citizen Scientists Aya Hirata Kimura shows how, instead of being praised for their concern about their communities’ health and safety, they faced stiff social sanctions, which dismissed their results by attributing them to the work of irrational and rumor-spreading women who lacked scientific knowledge. These citizen scientists were unsuccessful at gaining political traction, as they were constrained by neoliberal and traditional gender ideologies that dictated how private citizens—especially women—should act. By highlighting the challenges these citizen scientists faced, Kimura provides insights into the complicated relationship between science, foodways, gender, and politics in post-Fukushima Japan and beyond.

Genres: Nonfiction, Japan, History, Social Science, Anthropology

224 pages, Paperback

First published August 26, 2016

Reviews

[Carlos Filipe Bernardino]

Interesting book that reveals the struggle of Japanese mothers to have safe food after the Fukushima nuclear accident. The book is not a scientific study, but it warns of failures in food control, increased by economic interests. Finally, it warns against the devaluation of mothers' concerns and their attempts at better quality control, based on a notion of women's lesser ability to deal with science and its data.

[Marshall E]

A bit more abstract than I was hoping

[Lia Busby]

My favorite book this year!! It was very interesting to learn about the stigma around political activism post-Fukushima and how mothers were specifically targeted as irrational, or even hysterical, for wanting to protect their children from the dangers of radiation poisoning. Another notable point was the response from the Japanese government after the Fukushima incident such as the Eat to Support campaign and how women, such as Takeshita-san, who brought up worries that the government was promoting something dangerous to families and children, was outwardly ostracized for raising any sort of concern. The last main concept that I wanted to mention out of the many things I learned after reading her book was the “trifecta” of the social forces—scientism, neoliberalism, and finally postfeminism—and how they are all interconnected. Specifically, the idea of postfeminism, or essentially giving women “power” within the confines of the patriarchy, was equally fascinating and horrifying to read.