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Professor
Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney is a William F. Vilas Research
Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
An expert in the social, cultural, and symbolic anthropology
of Japan, she earned her Ph.D. from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of 12 books in
English and Japanese, including “Illness and Culture
in Contemporary Japan: An Anthropological View”
(1984), “The Monkey as Mirror: Symbolic Transformations
in Japanese History and Ritual” (1987), “Rice
as Self: Japanese Identities Through Time” (1993),
and “Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms:
the Militarization of Aesthetics in Japanese History”
(2002). Professor Ohnuki-Tierney has been awarded the
Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Humanities, and
Japan Foundation fellowships, and is a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
1.
Background
2.
Significance of Rice and other Foods in Japan
3.
Concept of Nature and what is Natural in Japanese Foods
4.
Food Safety in Japan
5.
McDonald’s and Changing Table Manners in Japan
6. Globalism and
the Japan/United States Food Market
7.
Concluding Thoughts
Concluding
Thoughts
L: As a final question, what advice would you give
to budding anthropologists and those in other disciplines?
OT: Well—I have not been politically sagacious
and I have been lucky, as I told you in the beginning,
that what I have been doing has always been a hobby.
I just pursued what I felt like doing. And I never went
on a bandwagon. What saved me—and I feel I still
have many more books to write along the way—was
that I could do whatever I felt was interesting. I think
some people are successful professionally but if you
don’t pursue what you are passionate about, you
get burned out.
L: Also, you mentioned about discovering things along
the way too—
OT: Yes, indeed. Because every book I started
out in a different way—for example, in “The
Monkey as Mirror,” I just wanted to study the
metaphysical importance of the monkey and ended up with
a dynamic social history—and with “Kamikaze,
Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms,” I just wanted
to have fun writing about cherry blossoms—and
then I discovered how the military abused the symbolism
of the cherry blossom—and the unexpected angles
and results of the research.
L: And your research on the, “The Rice as Self,”—
OT: Yes, as I said earlier, I was interested
in marginalized social groups and the agarian population—and
was getting interested in food—and the concept
of identities. But I did not realize to what extent
the agrarian hegemony was part and parcel of the development
of the minorities. I did not realize rice was not eaten
by the majority of the Japanese until very recently.
L: And in terms of nature and natural, the most unnatural
food is polished white rice.
OT: Absolutely, and in fact it has a great
deal to do with the military—they invited the
soldiers from the countryside—who were rice producers
and not consumers—and they were feeding them white
rice. Beriberi was the major cause of death among the
soldiers. And they tried to counterbalance that with
other foods. Polished rice was the least nutritious
food.
L: You are in a unique position, originally from Japan
and coming over to the United States. What do you feel
is your contribution to anthropology?
OT: I don’t know what my contribution
is but I blindly pursued my own interests, regardless
of what was expected of me—and I have been influenced
by major debates—I was influenced by structuralism
to a certain degree—I was influenced by postmodernism
to a degree. But I never took any of that in toto. So
some people think I’m really interested in theory
but it was only to illuminate my historical ethnography.
I always want to build my conclusions out of the dialectic
between theoretical interests and historical and ethnographic
data. But as far as my contribution goes—I just
don’t know—
L: As you said, you do what you feel is right, and,
most importantly, you have a passionate interest in
your research.
It was a pleasure and an honor to meet with you today.
OT: I enjoyed it very much. Thank you so much
for paying attention to my work.
L: Thank you very much.
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