Navigating precarious foodscapes: discourses and everyday practices of eating chicken meat in Japan

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Citation: Benjamin Schrager (14 Jan 2024): Navigating precarious foodscapes: discourses
and everyday practices of eating chicken meat in Japan, Food, Culture & Society, DOI:
10.1080/15528014.2023.2301636
Navigating precarious foodscapes: discourses and everyday practices of eating
chicken meat in Japan
Benjamin Schrager
School of Agriculture, Utsunomiya University, Utsunomiya, Japan
ABSTRACT
As consumers grow distanced from food production, prominent discourses increasingly
emphasize the importance of ethical food. These dynamics are indicative of precarious
foodscapes, a concept that I delve into through a case study of discourses and everyday
practices of eating chicken in Japan. For discourses, I contrast the media’s treatment of two
incidents: a 2016 domestic food incident in which scores were poisoned scores that
received scant media coverage and a 2014 foreign incident in which meat was mishandled
in a Chinese factory that received extensive media coverage as a food scandal. For
everyday practices, I analyze 22 focus groups in which participants discussed the strategies
and motivations that they draw on to navigate Japanese foodscapes. Participants strongly
preferred domestic chicken over imported chicken. Raw chicken emerged as an alluring
delicacy for some and a dangerous hazard for others. Prominent discourses informed
participant’s embodied sense of trust and shaped the factors they perceived to be
(un)important when buying food. I argue that discourses of ethical food and consumer
strategies for navigating precarious foodscapes vary based on context. Close attention to
context is necessary to navigate the barriers introduced by precarious foodscapes and
continue to build transformative linkages across food systems.
KEYWORDS Precarious foodscapes; everyday practice; discourses; food ethics;
Japan; chicken
1. From industrial to precarious food
A weeklong “Meat Festival” (niku fesu) held in Tokyo and Fukuoka City in the
spring of 2016 featured a conspicuous dish: herb chicken tenderloin sushi. A partially raw
chicken sushi dish at the Meat Festival was unusual but only became noteworthy after it
sickened nearly 900 people (MHLW multiple years). This incident had several salacious
characteristics typical of a major food safety scandal: at a highly publicized event, a known
high-risk food was served to thousands of festivalgoers and sickened scores. And yet, this
event hardly generated a blip in Japanese media coverage. A major reason for this lack of

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interest was that the culprit does not mesh with popular ideas of bad food in Japan. The
dish, chicken sushi, and the ingredient, domestic chicken meat, are both viewed positively.
The divergence between popular ideas of good food and actual food risks indicates a
broader shift in Japan from industrial food to precarious food. Whereas industrial food
evokes the efficiencies of scale accompanying modernization, precarious food evokes the
uncertainties and contradictions that emerge within late capitalism.
In wealthy countries such as Japan, industrial chicken meat has long been the norm
(Schrager 2018b). The strategies for producing and importing chicken meat have mostly
stayed the same over the last thirty years, although the nodes for production have continued
to intensify. Drawing from the example of the hog industry in the US, Blanchette (2020)
argues that “fewer people, places, and species now bear the unacknowledged weight of
making the world’s material artifacts; it means select people live through unprecedented
intensities of work” (Blanchette 2020, 5). For Blanchette, the spread of deindustrialization
reflects the hyperindustrialization of select locations. Rather than fading into irrelevance,
industrialism continues to evolve as an active and ongoing process that warrants close
analysis. I build on Blanchette’s insights into industrialism by shifting the focus to examine
how this hyperindustrialization of production impacts consumers.
Just as productive regions face a unique set of challenges, so too do consumers face
a myriad of challenges as they navigate contemporary food systems. I employ the term
“precarious” to indicate the unique condition eaters encounter in contemporary foodscapes.
In so doing, I evoke the broader shift away from the security of Fordism and toward the
greater uncertainty and vulnerability that permeates contemporary social relations (Millar
2017; Muehlebach 2011; Standing 2011, see also the introduction to this special issue).
Food grows increasingly fraught for consumers as people navigate an overabundance of
information and societal pressures to eat ethical food that reflects their status as responsible
consumers (Abbots and Coles 2013, Guthman 2011, Jackson et al. 2007). The strains of
precarious food are especially pronounced for mothers, who bear the brunt of expectations
that they should prepare and serve good food for their children (Cairns, Johnston, and
Mackendrick 2013, MacKendrick and Pristavec 2019). Alongside the growing emphasis on
eating good food, entrepreneurs and corporations increasingly seek to extract profits from
ideas of good food, blurring the line between good food and savvy marketing campaigns
(Goodman, Maye, and Holloway 2010, Jaffee and Howard 2010, Freidberg 2017). In
addition, ideas of ethical food are not universal but rather emerge from situated places
(Schrager 2018a, Sonnino and Milbourne 2022). The expression of precarious food varies
widely based on individual experiences, socioeconomic factors, and geographical context.
Within this wide variation, consumers face a deepening contradiction that food ethics grow
more difficult to navigate as they receive greater emphasis.

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To examine the deepening contradictions that arise from precarious foodscapes, I
analyze discourses and everyday practices of eating chicken in Japan. To analyze
discourses, I survey the discursive construction of food scandals in Japan before contrasting
two events, a foreign-based incident that blossomed into a full-blown scandal and a
domestic-based event that faded into obscurity. To analyze everyday practices, I draw on a
series of 22 focus groups with Japanese consumers. The ensuing section considers chicken
meat from a global perspective after which I delve into the Japanese case study.
2 Locating chicken meat within precarious foodscapes
Over the past decade, much social science research in the global North has shifted
away from debates over which meat should be eaten (though not all; see, for example,
Johnston, Weiler, and Baumann 2022, Maye et al. 2021, Weiss 2016). Social scientists
increasingly portray meat-eating as deviant behavior and examine the barriers that prevent
people from transitioning away from meat. Environmental scientists have also called for the
transition away from animal products and toward more sustainable diets in prestigious
academic journals such as Nature and Science (Foley et al. 2011, Godfray et al. 2018).
Psychologists have taken up the “meat paradox,” which refers to the paradox that arises
because “people simultaneously dislike hurting animals and like eating meat” (Loughnan,
Haslam, and Bastian 2010, 156; see also Joy 2011; Oleschuk, Johnston, and Baumann
2019). Scholars drawing on various moral, anarchist, and vegan philosophies have sought
progress toward goals like animal liberation and demeatification (Haifa Giraud 2021,
Oliver 2021, Sage 2014, Singer 2002). Since the 2010s, vegetarianism and veganism have
become increasingly mainstream in the global North (White 2018). The burgeoning interest
in veganism originates partly from social media and the strong positive association between
a vegan diet and ethical living (Twine 2018). The US and EU are leading exporters of
intensive animal industries (Weis 2013), advocates in the movement for animal rights
(Haifa Giraud 2021), and entrepreneurs promoting the adoption of alternative proteins
(Sexton, Garnett, and Lorimer 2019). The US and EU export the problematic industry of
intensive meat production along with ethical and technical solutions to address its inherent
problems. This dynamic problematically benefits the global North at the expense of the
rest.
The two most prominent justifications for abstaining from animal products are to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions and animal suffering. 1 Although animal products
exacerbate these problems, chicken meat, in particular, is far worse in terms of animal
suffering than greenhouse gas emissions. Calculating greenhouse gas emissions from
1 The greatest success of the growing awareness of ethical concerns over chicken meat has been the
growing adoption of animal welfare standards.

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animal agriculture is challenging, and one study using data from 2010 that examined factors
such as land conversion and grain industries concluded that animal agriculture was
responsible for 23% of greenhouse gas emissions (Reisinger and Clark 2018). According to
Denny’s (2019) analysis of FAO data, in 2015, chicken emitted 60,000 gigatons, pork
160,000 gigatons, and beef 1,800,000 gigatons of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases. This
data indicates that between chicken, beef, and pork, chicken is responsible for 3.0%, pork
for 7.9%, and beef for 89.1% of greenhouse gas emissions. Chicken becomes far more
burdensome if the emphasis is instead placed on the number of sentient animals that suffer.
FAO data indicates that 70.8 billion chickens, 1.51 billion pigs, and 293 million cattle were
slaughtered in 2020 (FAOSTAT 2020). Among chicken, beef, and pork industries, chicken
industries are responsible for 97.5% of the sentient beings slaughtered compared to only
2.1% for pig industries and 0.4% for cattle industries. Chicken meat is of stark concern
from an animal rights perspective but less pressing regarding greenhouse gas emissions.
Consumers tend to view chicken meat products as rife with contradictions. In a
series of publications, Peter Jackson and colleagues explore anxieties and discourses of
chicken meat in England (Jackson, Russell, and Ward 2007, Jackson, Ward, and Russell
2009, Jackson 2015). Through a case study of a large supermarket retailer, they show that
conventional supermarket retailers have long sought to appropriate alternative discourses of
food (Jackson, Russell, and Ward 2007). In particular, the Oakham White brand’s emphasis
on Britishness and high quality resonates with consumers concerned over the safety of
cheap industrial chicken meat. Corporations exploit consumer concerns so that alongside
anxiety-inducing cheap meat, consumers now have the option to pay more for food that
appears to be better. In wealthy Western countries, marketing campaigns for trustworthy
chicken often emphasize ideas of local provenance and certifications such as free range and
organic. As a result, popular discourses have a problematic tendency to laud domestic and
expensive foods while taking a dim view of imported and cheap foods (Abbots and Coles
2013). Although there is a growing attentiveness to the ethics of eating chicken meat, this
has had a limited role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and animal suffering.1 Instead,
consumers are now forced to choose whether they are willing to pay more for new
categories of purportedly more ethical chicken meat even though buying these products
does little to remediate the harms arising from chicken meat industries, a situation that is
indicative of the difficult choices that consumers face when navigating precarious
foodscapes.
3 Prominent discourses of food scandals in Japan
Critical scholars have long drawn attention to cuisine’s influential role in
constructing national identities (Appadurai 1988, Pilcher 1996, Wilk 1999). Food is a

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ubiquitous part of everyday life, and so ingredients, preparation techniques, and culinary
heritage inform banal understandings of national identity and belonging. Alongside the
positive sense of group belonging evoked through the pairing of cuisine and national
identity, this pairing predictably lends itself to culinary nationalism (Desoucey 2010,
Ferguson 2010). In Japan, discourses of Japanese food have become a powerful source of
nationalism (Cwiertka 2006, Ranta and Ichijo 2022, Rath 2016, Takeda 2008). The positive
view of Japanese cuisine extends beyond Japan, as UNESCO designated washoku
(Japanese cuisine) on the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2013 with a recognition of
the use of seasonal and local ingredients.
The discourse of fūhyō higai emerged in the 2000s as a strategy for calling attention
to “reputational damage” (Takeda 2017, 496). Fūhyō higai shifts scrutiny from businesses
and toward consumers, portraying consumers as prone to irrational biases that unfairly
harm businesses (Kimura 2016, Ch. 1). Fūhyō higai intersects with anzen-anshin, a
prominent Japanese set phrase used in connection with food safety that combines safety
(anzen) with peace of mind (anshin) (Yamaguchi 2014). In general, after popular media
acknowledges a domestic food scandal, coverage swiftly pivots to emphasize the
implementation of new technical measures that ensure food safety (anzen). Dominant
discourses also criticize those who doubt these new technical measures for feeding into
fūhyō higai. Since peace of mind (anshin) has positive connotations, prevalent discourses
emphasize that technical measures or interventions taken in response to an incident should
give consumers peace of mind.
A key driver of anxieties over globalized food systems is food scandals, because
scandals garner widespread attention that shape the restructuring of food systems
(Freidberg 2004). Japan’s first major domestic food scandal post-2000 occurred on 10
September 2001 when government officials confirmed a case of bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease, in Chiba Prefecture (Tanaka 2008).
Popular media soon brimmed with cautionary messages warning against fūhyō higai. For
example, an article in the Asahi Shimbun from 11 September 2001 lamented that
consumption of beef and dairy products declined even though that supermarket did not sell
beef or dairy products from Chiba Prefecture (Asahi Shimbun 2001). Within a month, more
than one hundred articles in the Asahi Shimbun contained both the phrases “mad cow
disease” and “fūhyō higai.” 2 In response to a spate of food controversies, foremost of
which was mad cow disease, the Japanese government passed the Food Safety Basic Law
in 2003 that overhauled food safety governance by establishing the Food Safety
2 I reached this conclusion by searching for the keywords mad cow (kyōgyūbyō) and fūhyō higai in the Asahi
Shimbun Cross-Search system. This search returned 114 results between 11 September and 10 October 2001.

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Commission and tasking it with conducting risk analysis to ensure food safety (Tanaka
2008, 568). The Food Safety Commission formalized a process through which food safety
debates could be answered through a series of technical evaluations by scientific experts. It
also gave the government a solid foundation to assert food safety claims and dismiss
criticisms as a harmful source of fūhyō higai.
In the winter of 2003–2004, Japan endured an avian influenza outbreak at Win Win
Farm in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan’s first avian influenza outbreak since 1925. On 30
December 2003, an official checked on atypical conditions at Win Win Farm. However,
avian influenza was only confirmed on 12 January, and it took until 15 January to complete
the culling of chickens at the infected farm. The Japanese government then confronted the
daunting logistical challenge of recalling eggs produced by and culling chickens at Win
Win Farm. As the government spearheaded its response to the outbreak, popular media
cautioned against fūhyō higai. For example, a newspaper article from 14 January 2004
quotes a Yamaguchi Prefecture tourism official, who lamented that concern over avian
influenza confuses ordinary tourists and connects strongly with fūhyō higai (Asahi
Shimbun 2004).
The fūhyō higai discourse garnered international attention in the aftermath of the
Fukushima triple disaster (Kimura 2016, Sternsdorff-Cisterna 2018, Takeda 2017). Initial
coverage focused on the devastation of the earthquake and tsunami. However, within a
week of the earthquake, coverage focused on the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi
reactor and concerns over fūhyō higai. Citizens faced pressure to trust government,
industry, and scientific experts that the Japanese food system was safe even though food
with dangerously high radiation levels was still circulating. A notable example was cesium
beef that far exceeded government standards and was being served to schoolchildren
through school lunches in the summer of 2011 (Kimura 2016, Ch. 3). Rather than helping
to make food systems safer, the discourse of fūhyō higai sought to reframe the meanings
associated with food so that rather than prioritizing personal safety consumers would
prioritize their faith in the regulation of the food system and support for domestic
businesses.
As the idea of food safety grew increasingly influential in Japan, so did discourses
and policies emphasizing the benefits of domestic food in contrast to the dangers of
imported food. Japanese media devotes far more coverage to food safety scandals that are
foreign in origin than domestic scandals, especially if the offending food came from China
(Rosenberger 2009, Walravens 2017). In terms of policy, the government launched a food
education (shokuiku) program with a law in 2005 that aims to educate schoolchildren about

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food, an educational campaign that regularly touts the benefits of Japanese cuisine and
foods (Assmann 2017, Takeda 2008).
In contrast to these policies that promote positive associations with Japanese food,
other policies obfuscate the contributions of foreign foods and workers to Japanese food
systems. The Japanese government has different origin labeling rules for different
categories of food, with place origins required for “home consumption” (katei shōhi-yō) but
optional for “industry use or processed foods” (gyōmu kakō-yō). About one-third of the
chicken meat consumed in Japan is imported, and of that chicken, 90% goes to the second
category of industry use or processed food that does not require origin labeling (MAFF
2018, 123). As a result, Japanese consumers are less aware when they eat foreign chicken,
thus developing less familiarity with and trust in imported chicken.
3.1 Divergent coverage of foreign and domestic food safety incidents
This section unpacks the characteristics that caused a foreign food incident to bloom
into a full-blown scandal in contrast to a domestic food incident that received scant
coverage. The foreign incident came to light on 20 July 2014 after Shanghai-based Dragon
TV broke a story revealing that chicken meat from a Shanghai Husi Foods factory was
regularly mishandled. Footage revealed workers picking meat off the floor and taking
expired meat from its packaging to put on the processing line. A manager for Shanghai Husi
Food claimed that these practices had the “tacit approval of the company’s senior
managers” (Qun and Xiaozheng 2014). Days later, the story received widespread coverage
in Japan because Japan imports 6,000 metric tons of chicken meat from Shanghai Husi
Foods, which operates multiple food processing factories and is a subsidiary of the US-
based OSI group (Asahi Shimbun 2014a). In addition, McDonald’s and Family Mart
sourced chicken nuggets from Shanghai Husi Food. In Japan, media coverage swirled
around the untrustworthiness of Chinese foods. McDonalds Japan’s revenue declined by
17% in July 2014 as it temporarily suspended the sale of Chicken McNuggets (Yomiuri
Shimbun 2014). The Chinese government responded by arresting five employees at the
offending plant and seizing 100 tons of meat. In August, it announced that none of the
expired meat had entered Japan (Asahi Shimbun 2014b). Newspapers regularly linked this
scandal with the poison gyoza scandal in which 10 Japanese fell ill after eating gyoza made
in China that harbored excessive pesticide residue.
The domestic incident, described briefly in the opening paragraph of this article,
occurred when nearly 900 people reported food poisoning from undercooked chicken at a
2016 Meat Festival hosted simultaneously in Tokyo and Fukuoka City. Table 1 shows a
comparison of the 2014 Shanghai Husi Food and 2016 Meat Festival Incidents. A Japanese
event planning corporation called AATJ Co., Ltd. organizes Meat Festivals where booths

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serve specialty meat dishes. They further buoy the festival atmosphere with musical
performances and celebrity appearances. In 2016, Meat Festivals were held in Tokyo (28
April to 8 May) and Fukuoka (29 April to 8 May) with the same booths. Unfortunately, one
of these booths sold an undercooked chicken sushi dish with high levels of harmful
campylobacter coli and campylobacter jejuni bacteria. Within days of the festival opening,
food sanitation offices received reports of food poisoning from the chicken sushi. When
health officials inspected the food booth in Tokyo, they discovered that workers served the
chicken partially raw 3 after boiling breast tenderloin for 1.5 to 2.5 minutes. A Tokyo
government health sanitation report observed: “Employees were inexperienced and
understaffed: one full-time employee from the poultry industry with no background in the
food service industry oversaw up to eight part-time temporary employees with limited food
handling experience” (Tokyo Health 2016, 145). Sanitation officials directed the workers to
boil the chicken for eight minutes. By mid-May, Fukuoka Prefecture reported 108 people
sickened, and Tokyo reported 49 for a total of 157 people sickened. Due to concerns over
food poisoning, a Meat Festival planned in Fukushima from 19 to 22 May was canceled.
Newspapers covered this event with short notices, and by early June, it receded from the
news.
In annual reports on food poisoning, Fukuoka Prefecture and Tokyo disclosed that
the severity of food poisoning from chicken sushi was far greater than their initial reports at
the time of the incident. Fukuoka Prefecture reported 266 suffered food poisoning from the
event, a 71.6% increase over the initial 157. Tokyo reported 609, a twelve-fold increase
over the initial 49. Between Fukuoka and Tokyo, a total of 875 people reported food
poisoning, making it Japan’s largest incident of food poisoning victims in 2016 and the
18th largest such incident from 2000 to 2022 when data is publicly available (MHLW
multiple years). It is also the largest number of people sickened from intentionally
undercooked animal meat. Despite the parallels, this incident was not linked with a food
scandal from 2012 that drew widespread attention after five customers died from eating raw
beef at a Korean-style BBQ (yakiniku) restaurant. Since the government offices delayed
reporting the number of food poisoning victims until the end of the year, the severity of this
incident emerged more than half a year after the event. At that point, it received little to no
coverage.
The delay in disclosure draws attention to the complex relationship between
businesses, government policies, and media coverage in Japan. As media scholars have
3 Some raw chicken dishes are served completely raw while some are only partially cooked.
Throughout the article, I use “raw” to indicate the intentional serving of chicken meat that is either completely
or partially raw.

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shown, Japan has low levels of press freedom because government access is crucial for
media coverage, and this situation impedes the media’s ability to pursue their role as a
government watchdog (Fackler 2016, Kingston 2017). A combination of policy and
prominent discourses like fūhyō higai incentivize news media to cover stories such as
Shanghai Husi Food while disincentivizing coverage of stories such as the Meat Festival.
Government policy for food poisoning reporting shielded the reputation of AATJ Co., Ltd.
and its Meat Festival event. In contrast, Japanese media drew broad inferences from the
Shanghai Husi Food incident of the perils posed by foreign and especially Chinese food
without proof that the mishandled chicken had entered Japan or sickened any Japanese.
This comparison reveals a stark difference in media coverage, with a slant toward covering
foreign food incidents as scandals and domestic food incidents as minor. For consumers,
such media coverage alerts them to problems arising from contemporary food provisioning
systems but disproportionately portrays Japanese food as safe and imported food as unsafe.
Table 1: Comparison of 2014 Shanghai Husi Food and 2016 Meat Festival incidents
2014 Shanghai Husi Food
2016 Meat Festival
Problem
A Shanghai food factory used expired
and mishandled meat in its products
Undercooked chicken served at a
festival held in Tokyo and Fukuoka
Companies
OIS Group (US)
Shanghai Husi Foods (China)
McDonald’s Japan (Japan and US)
Family Mart (Japan)
AATJ Co., Ltd. (Japan)
Meat Festival (Japan)
Nawashoku Chicken Co., Ltd.
(Japan)
Product
Processed chicken products including
chicken nuggets
Chicken sushi
Number
sickened
Never linked with any illness or
confirmed that mishandled meat
entered Japan
875 sickened (266 in Fukuoka
Prefecture and 609 in Tokyo)
Asahi and
Yomiuri
newspaper
coverage
4
50 stories
34,700 characters
7 stories
2,910 characters
4 Everyday practices of eating chicken
4 The length and number of articles was compiled using keyword searches in the Yomiuri Rekishikan and
Asahi Kikuzō II databases.

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4.1 Focus groups research methods
I conducted focus groups on chicken meat in Japan between November 2016 and
July 2017 while based in Miyazaki Prefecture. I have a disciplinary background in human
geography and Japanese is my second language. I conducted a series of 22 focus groups on
everyday food practice with an emphasis on chicken meat. Bloor et al. (2001) argue that
“the aim of the focus group is not to make generalizations to a population in the same way
that largescale quantitative methods may have as their goal” (Bloor et al. 2001, 30).”
Rather, the group dynamics of focus groups may provide researchers withy unique insights
into in-group usage of terms and categories (Bloor et al. 2001). Through these focus
groups, I sought to understand better the way that people talk about their everyday food
practices and strategies for navigating contemporary food systems. I employed two devices,
time and circumstances permitting, to focus the conversation on everyday practices and
related ethical considerations.
To inquire about everyday practices, I distributed two sets of twelve photographs
that I took of raw and processed chicken meat from supermarkets in Miyazaki Prefecture,
examples of which include Brazilian-produced chicken thighs, artisan jidori chicken thighs,
and seared chicken intended for partially raw consumption (tataki) (see examples of
pictures in Figure 1). These photographs prompted participants to share how they interpret
food products based on appearance, price, and labeling. The photographs focused the
conversation on the skills that participants employ to navigate supermarkets, encouraging
them to share what they buy, where they buy it, and why. For the second device, I utilized a
survey to draw attention to ethical considerations in buying chicken meat, which I describe
below in section 4.4.
I sought to recruit participants interested in discussing everyday food practices, and
most of the participants were women or university students in food-related disciplines. I
could not offer financial remuneration, but I provided culturally appropriate compensation
in the form of packaged snacks from the area of my home institution. Overall,
approximately 110 people participated in a total of 22 focus groups. I conducted these focus
groups in Miyazaki City (n = 10), parts of Miyazaki Prefecture outside of Miyazaki City (n
= 5), and the Tokyo metropolitan area (n = 7). The focus groups consisted mainly of
university students (ages 18 to 21, n = 7), adults of working age (ages 22 to 59, n = 7), and
adults of retirement age (60 and older, n = 8). Most focus groups lasted between 45 minutes
to an hour, but some discussions continued longer. Afterward, I transcribed the focus
groups with the help of a research assistant and coded them using NVIVO.
As the facilitator, I encouraged participants to discuss directly with each other. I
began focus groups with a prompt question utilized by Evans and Miele (2012), asking

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participants: “What did you eat yesterday?” This question encouraged participants to think
about their practices rather than abstract ideas of ethical food. I then asked follow-up
questions such as “Where do you typically buy food?” and “How do you decide which food
you would buy?” Following Bloor et al.’s (2001) recommendations, I used an evolving set
of prompt questions that responded to the interest of focus group participants and my
evolving understanding of the topic to shape the direction of individual focus groups.
Figure 1 Examples photographs of chicken products distributed to focus group participants
1a (left) Chicken tataki (domestically produced)
1b (right) Chicken thigh (Brazilian imports)
1c (bottom) Tosa Hachikin jidori chicken thigh (Kochi Prefecture)
4.2 “Tasty” domestic food preferred over “scary” imports
In focus groups, participants widely accepted the premise that Japanese food is
better than imported food, but participants diverged over whether they were willing to pay
more for domestic food. Compared to groups composed of working and retirement-age

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members, university students were more inclined to opt for imported food. The following
exchange occurred between university students in Tokyo:
♂1: Even if imported food is cheap, my starting point is always domestic
(kokusan).
♂2: For things that I occasionally eat and want to enjoy the taste of, I’d probably
buy domestic.
♀3: Yeah. I don’t feel as if I have the leeway to buy domestic all the time
(Fieldnotes, July 2017).
Even after ♂1 states an unequivocal preference for domestic food, other students chime in
with qualifications. ♂2 says that he would probably buy domestic food when he wants to
savor the taste, indicating that he often opts for lower-quality imports despite a taste
preference for domestic food. ♀3 adds the qualification that, in contrast to ♂1, she lacks
the financial means to buy exclusively domestic food. In this exchange, a shared preference
for domestic food emerges, but participants identify the structural challenge of needing to
pay more for domestic food.
University students in Miyazaki City discussed similar attitudes toward foreign and
domestic chicken meat:
♂4: Well, I live by myself, so I think Brazilian chicken is fine. Of course, the price
is low.
♀5: No doubt it’s a difficult decision. Brazilian chicken is cheap, but I think
domestic is better (Fieldnotes, November 2016).
Even as ♂4 discloses that he eats imported chicken, he justifies this practice by noting that
he lives alone. This position implies that he expects to transition to eating domestic chicken
when he advances beyond the bachelor life stage to live with a family. ♀5 notes that it is a
difficult choice and does not dismiss Brazilian chicken as an option, but she states a clear
preference for domestic chicken. Even when university students opt for cheaper imported
chicken meat, they perceive domestic chicken as superior and aspire to eat domestic
chicken exclusively.

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Unlike university students, who expect to transition to domestic food later in life,
parents, especially mothers, experience additional pressure because they are responsible for
feeding their children. In a Miyazaki City focus group with mothers in their 30s and 40s,
participants described similar difficulties in balancing their confidence in the superiority of
domestic food against the lower cost of imported options:
♀6: For food products, China and South Korea are totally . . .
♀7: Scary! It’s a little, I don’t know.
♀8: But it is cheap.
♀6: Australia, food from there is still okay. Brazilian chicken, too.
♀7: It’s half-price, isn’t it?
♀8: Whenever possible, domestically produced (kokusan), Japanese.
♀7: If you can do that. (Fieldnotes, December 2016)
In this exchange, ♀6 distinguishes food imported from Australia and Brazil, which is still
okay, with food imported from China and South Korea, which is not okay. Her perceptions
align with Japan’s foreign relations as Japan has warmer relations with Australia and Brazil
than China and South Korea. ♀7 chimes in with her negative association of Chinese and
South Korean food (“scary”) and more positive association with Australian and Brazilian
food (“half price”). ♀8 states her preference for domestic food, and ♀7 responds by
drawing attention to the higher cost of domestic food. This exchange shares many
similarities with the exchange between university students in which ♂1 expressed a clear
preference for Japanese food, and other participants added qualifications for why they
would or would not buy domestic chicken meat.
In these focus groups and others, participants consistently exhibited a shared
preference for domestic food and domestic chicken. Instead of discussing what makes
Japanese food better than imported food, exchanges focused on the problems associated
with imported food or why individual participants opted for cheaper but inferior imported
food. Take, for example, the following exchange with a cooking group of mainly retiree-
age participants in Miyazaki City:

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♀9: Domestic or imported. That’s what I normally look at. I don’t buy imported.
Author: And the reason is?
♀9: It’s kind of scary. (Fieldnotes, December 2016)
The participant points to the scariness of imported food, indicating that she trusts domestic
food more. At a different cooking group with retiree-age participants in Miyazaki City,
participants identified regulations requiring imported chicken to be frozen and disinfected
(shōdoku). Participants did not elaborate on the meaning of disinfection. It could refer to
the hygienic handling of tools in processing facilities, but in this context, disinfection took
on an ominous undertone of slaughterhouse workers haphazardly using harsh chemicals.
After hearing references to freezing and disinfection, ♀10 stated, “And that’s why it’s bad
for your body, so no way!” (Fieldnotes, December 2016). This participant inferred adverse
health effects from measures put in place to ensure food safety and benefit consumers.
These measures also reflect the industrialization and globalization of food, trends that
evoke consumer anxiety.
4.3The complex allure of raw chicken
Prominent discourses portray bad food as imported, industrial, and foreign in
contrast to the portrayal of good food as Japanese, traditional, and fresh. Raw chicken
dishes are a tricky fit for these discourses because raw chicken is considered Japanese,
traditional, and fresh. However, with industrialization, raw chicken dishes have become
more widely accessible throughout the country and become more dangerous. Raw chicken
dishes are likely the leading source of food poisoning in Japan (Schrager 2021). 5 Focus
group participants tended to view raw chicken dishes positively as a delicacy, although
some participants, especially retiree-age participants, tended to view raw chicken dishes
with more apprehension.
Indicating the seared chicken in Figure 1, I asked three university students in
Miyazaki City if they thought chicken tataki was safe. They responded:
♂11: Yes, well, they sell it so of course.
♂12: I have never gotten poisoned, so I think it’s okay.
5 Food poisoning statistics are rife with uncertainty. See Schrager (2021, 37–38).

15
Author: [to ♀13] What do you think?
♀13: I have never tried it, so I don’t know (Fieldnotes, November 2016).
Both male students indicated that they thought chicken tataki was safe, ♂11 citing the
market and ♂12 embodied experience. When asked if she thought chicken tataki was safe,
♀13 replied that she lacked the embodied experience of eating it, so she did not know if it
was safe. These responses indicate the pitfalls of prominent discourses of good and bad
food in Japan. ♂11 expresses misplaced faith in government regulation of the market when
the government’s policy is that all chicken meat should be thoroughly cooked. For
restaurants and consumers that persist with raw chicken dishes, they do so at their own risk.
Unlike raw chicken, which is permitted, the Japanese government prohibits the sale of
some deadly but traditional foods such as blowfish and beef liver. Given the concerns over
reputational damage from fūhyō higai, the nuances of raw chicken are challenging to
communicate to the public.
Embodied risk is a helpful indicator of the extent to which someone will experience
food poisoning from raw chicken. Some are more susceptible than others to food poisoning
because it results from the situated interaction of bacteria in an individual’s gut. A group of
retiree-age women connected through a cooking group in Miyazaki City had the following
exchange:
♀14: Tataki is delicious with momiji-oroshi (a dipping sauce made from ground
daikon and spicy pepper).
♀15: Tataki? [surprised] I’ve never had that. Do you eat it raw?
♀14: I came from Fukuoka after marrying someone from Miyazaki, and after
arriving here, I came to like tataki. Put momiji-oroshi and ginger on it, deeelicious!
♀16: People who like tataki buy a lot.
♀17: I do nothing but get poisoned. [laughter] Well, that wasn’t tataki but gizzard
sashimi.
♀14: Gizzard, gizzard sashimi? Oh, I don’t think I could do that (Fieldnotes,
December 2016).

16
♀14 has a unique passion for tataki with momiji-oroshi that she associates with adapting to
life in Miyazaki. By contrast, ♀15 is unfamiliar with raw chicken dishes, showing that
even people living in Miyazaki, a region highly associated with raw chicken, have diverse
encounters with raw chicken. ♀17 interjects that she has been poisoned by gizzard sashimi,
to which the tataki with momiji-oroshi enthusiast ♀14 responds that she probably could not
do gizzard sashimi. For raw chicken, the internal organs pose a significantly higher risk of
food poisoning, and ♀14 appears to grasp that gizzard sashimi is more dangerous. Part of
the reason why the comparative risk of different types of raw chicken dishes is difficult to
communicate to the public is because comparative risk acknowledges that raw internal
organs such as liver are even more dangerous to eat raw than dishes like chicken tataki.
However, both are more dangerous than thoroughly cooked chicken.
The main limitation of relying on embodied experience to navigate precarious
foodscapes is that food poisoning can lead to serious medical complications. In a focus
group of retiree-age women in Miyazaki City, ♀18 said, “My cousin liked chicken sashimi,
and he became ill. He received treatment for one or two years, and they figured out in the
end that the cause was chicken sashimi” (Fieldnotes, July 2017). After that, ♀19 chimed in
that she also knew someone who was hospitalized by chicken sashimi. Despite a somber
tone focusing on the dangers posed by raw chicken, ♀20 disclosed that she still eats raw
chicken, and this was met with laughter. Embodied experience provides information about
past experiences but does not guarantee that future forays into risky cuisine will be harm-
free.
In contrast to the retiree-age groups, who were more likely to acknowledge risks,
college-age groups were more likely to have participants who actively sought out raw
chicken. A group of university students in Tokyo had the following exchange after I asked
if they eat things like chicken sashimi:
♂21: Liver. Yes, I eat liver sashimi.
Author: Is it good (oishii)?
♂21: Deee-licious.
♂22: For me, too, if I went to an izakaya (Japanese-style bar) that had chicken
tataki, I would want to eat it. Of course, back when I was in Akita Prefecture, I didn’t really

17
have opportunities to eat chicken tataki, and since I’ve come here to Tokyo, I’ve only been
able to eat it in an izakaya. If I saw raw chicken at a supermarket or festival, I would want
to get it. I’m a person who likes rare things. (mezurashii mono) (Fieldnotes, July 2017). ♂
21 enjoys raw liver, but despite his enthusiasm, ruefully observed later in the focus group,
“I guess I am the kind of guy who gets caught by things like food poisoning.” Even when
consumers know raw chicken’s risks, they may persist with eating it. ♂22 expresses a
positive framing of raw chicken as a rare delicacy newly accessible to him upon moving to
Tokyo. Their practices indicate how individual eaters face a torrent of pressures and
information within precarious foodscapes. Prominent discourses shape the foods that
people perceive to be desirable, and people are even willing to expose their bodies to risky
food given the right framing.
4.4Survey on food ethics for chicken meat
I administered a survey near the end of the focus group to collect information about
participants’ demographics and attitudes to chicken (n = 82). As Table 2 reports, Part of the
survey asked participants to use a 1 to 5 Likert scale to rank the importance they attribute to
ten different criteria when buying chicken meat. Differences emerged between university
students and older participants, with university students placing greater emphasis on price
and less on safety and domestic origins. After five rounds of focus groups, I observed that
the criterion participants gave the greatest weight were also especially legible, so I asked
participants to select up to three criteria that were the easiest to understand when buying
chicken meat in the supermarket (n = 57). My aim was not to create a representative survey
of the Japanese population’s perceptions of chicken meat, which has already been done
elsewhere. 6 Instead, I sought to create space for participants to reflect on aspects of food
ethics and visibility.
6 For more representative surveys of the Japanese population, see Japan Meat Information Service
Center (JMISC 2022, 104).

18
Table 2: Survey results of focus group participants on the ease of determining and
importance of different criteria when buying chicken meat
Easy to
determine in
supermarket
Unimportant7
Moderate
importance
Important
Price
56.1%
1.4%
23.0%
75.7%
Domestic or
imported
56.1%
8.6%
8.6%
82.9%
Freshness
42.1%
4.0%
12.0%
84.0%
Part of the
chicken
40.4%
6.1%
27.3%
66.7%
Domestic
region
29.8%
14.1%
28.2%
57.7%
Safety
(anzen-anshin)
22.8%
6.3%
7.5%
86.3%
Animal
welfare
8
7.0%
19.4%
20.8%
59.7%
Global warming
3.5%
20.3%
15.3%
64.4%
Slaughterhouse
conditions
0.0%
24.3%
28.6%
47.1%
Farmer salary
0.0%
24.3%
28.6%
47.1%
In administering the surveys, I encountered the challenge of finding an adequate
Japanese term for “animal welfare.” Initially, I used the term chicken protection (aigo), a
term used in Japanese laws. After this caused confusion, I experimented with the terms
chicken welfare (fukushi), chicken shed conditions (keishya no jyōkyō), chicken’s health
condition (kenkō jitai), and the Japanese pronunciation of animal welfare (animaru
uerufea). Each of these terms caused confusion. Participants consistently inquired into the
meaning of this criterion. Their inquiries reflect the low awareness of animal welfare
among the Japanese population. A more representative survey by Kitano et al. (2022, 2)
found that only 11.3% of Japanese respondents recognize the concept of farm animal
welfare. By asking participants to rate the importance they attribute to animal welfare, the
survey caused some participants to encounter an unfamiliar concept.
Similarly, some participants struggled to rate the importance they attribute to global
warming when buying chicken. During a focus group with mostly retirees in Miyazaki
7 This chart uses the Likert scale of 1 and 2 for Unimportant, 3 for Modest importance, and 4 and 5
for Important.
8 Note that different terms were substituted for animal welfare as the text describes.

19
Prefecture, a participant pointed to the survey and said she was concerned about global
warming. She then asked me if there was a connection between chicken meat and global
warming and whether she should stop eating chicken meat (Fieldnotes, December 2016).
Her question highlights a core issue people face within precarious foodscapes: they
confront proliferating ethical obligations that lack simple solutions. While facilitating these
focus groups, I sought to maintain a neutral position, so her question put me in an awkward
position. I tried to maintain my neutrality by explaining that chicken meat contributes to
global warming, and so some scholars say you should not eat it, but other meats like beef
release more greenhouse gases.
The survey challenged participants because some criteria are important but largely
or entirely obscured from consumers. Figuring out criteria such as global warming would
require participants to research greenhouse gas emissions. Other information, such as
slaughterhouse conditions or farmer salaries, is inaccessible. As a result, respondents
indicated through surveys that these criteria are difficult to determine in the supermarket.
Regarding food safety for chicken meat, slaughterhouse conditions are a significant
determinant of contamination by harmful microbes. Rather than focus on this inaccessible
criterion, participants turned to more accessible criteria and familiar discourses such as
domestic provenance and anzen-anshin. The survey data show that anzen-anshin is unique.
Despite receiving the highest percentage that evaluates it as important when buying
chicken, participants also indicated that anzen-anshin was far more challenging to
determine in the supermarket than criteria such as price and domestic origins. Anzen-anshin
reflects the embodied sense of trust that participants employ to make judgments about food,
so it is important to them even if it is somewhat difficult to determine.
5 Dynamics between discourse and practice
Prominent discourses informed participant’s embodied sense of trust and shaped the
factors they perceived to be (un)important when buying food. As a critical food scholar
researching chicken in Miyazaki Prefecture, raw chicken dishes emerged as a compelling
example of a dish that runs contrary to prominent discourses of good food in Japan. Raw
chicken is produced in Japan, traditional, and fresh, but it poses an elevated risk of food
poisoning. Despite this risk, some people savor raw chicken as a delicacy. The risk of food
poisoning from raw chicken dishes increased as the intensification of chicken industries led
to a surge in harmful bacteria, raw chicken shifted from a regional dish to become more
accessible throughout the country, and prohibitions on raw beef and pork contributed to an
increase in raw chicken consumption (Schrager 2021). The positive discourses that make
raw chicken so appealing distort the changing economic and ecological conditions that
make it a leading source of food poisoning in Japan. The discrepancy between material

20
conditions and prominent discourses helps to explain why a large event like the 2016 Meat
Festival would serve undercooked chicken, widespread food poisoning received little
coverage, and consumer awareness of the dangers posed by raw chicken dishes remains
low.
Though raw chicken is an extreme example, it underscores the challenges people
face as they navigate precarious foodscapes that confront them with a barrage of ethical
claims and information. Rather than investigating each claim, consumers often turn to
embodied and intuitive understandings of what they should eat. In Japan, prominent
discourses emphasize the preferability of Japanese food over imports. Discourses such as
fūhyō higai work to slant media coverage to be more lenient of domestic food incidents and
condemnatory of foreign food incidents. While these discourses can distort consumer
perceptions, consumers have numerous strong justifications for preferring domestic food.
Products produced in and for the Japanese market respond more to consumer preferences.
Unlike imported food that multinational corporations orchestrate, domestic food involves
shorter food chains, giving consumers a closer connection to the producer and fewer
opportunities for contamination. Despite these and other justifications for buying domestic
food, focus group participants seldom elucidated such specific reasons. Instead, domestic
food provided a shortcut for navigating contemporary food systems by enabling them to
differentiate between tasty domestic food and scary imported food.
This article shows that the media, government policy, and consumer perceptions are
biased toward domestic food over imported food. Such bias feeds into food nationalism, a
longstanding characteristic of Japanese foodscapes (Cwiertka 2006, Ranta and Ichijo 2022,
Rath 2016, Takeda 2008). The contemporary expression of food nationalism in Japan,
however, is deeply informed by the dynamics driving precarious foodscapes. For
Blanchette (2020), the growing distance between consumers and productive regions
resulted in the deindustrialization of most places as select places became the site of intense
hyperindustrialization. Building on Blanchette, I argue that consumers face a unique set of
challenges within contemporary food systems because food grows increasingly fraught as
consumers grow alienated from production and inundated by ethical claims. The preference
for Japanese chicken over imported chicken becomes about more than just narrow choices
for taste, food safety, and freshness. Buying Japanese chicken provides consumers with a
trustworthy option that bypasses many food-related anxieties they face.
6 Building on precarious foodscapes
This article elucidates how precarious foodscapes introduces obligations and risks
that make everyday practice especially fraught for consumers. The concept of precarious
foodscapes does not immediately lend itself to normative goals for improving food systems,

21
even though such goals are urgent. Precarious foodscapes does not provide a roadmap that
leads directly to a destination of more just and ethical food systems.
Instead, precarious foodscapes provides a map that identifies pitfalls, reveals
impassible terrain, and acknowledges that well-intentioned initiatives face cooptation. No
simple or easy solutions exist to the manifold and interlocking issues permeating
contemporary food systems. Attempts to oversimplify the complexity and the depths of the
challenges we face might lead to short-term successes but hazards introducing new and
even more intractable problems. Future research should continue to delve into the complex
challenges presented by precarious foodscapes, so that we can better understand how to
build solidarity that enables broad mobilization against the pressing challenges we face.
In the global North, greenhouse gas emissions and animal rights are prominent
reasons for refraining from eating chicken meat. When I conducted the focus groups with
Japanese consumers in 2016–2017, ideas of animal welfare and global warming did not
arise organically from focus group discussions on everyday practices of eating meat. They
only arose after I introduced them through the device of a survey. Even then, these ideas
confused some participants, reflecting how prominent ideas in the global North can be
marginal in other contexts.
In the Japanese context, a particular mix of developments and contradictions
emerged that underscore the relevance of precarity to the study of food going forward.
Japanese government and media have supported the embrace of domestic and local
foodways, drawing attention to the benefits of seasonal and regional cuisine. Positive
discourses of Japanese food, however, distort Japanese consumers’ understandings of the
dangers posed by imported and domestic foods. The growing enthusiasm for Japanese
cuisine and its association with raw chicken contributed to an unprecedented increase in
food poisoning from raw chicken (Schrager 2021). As food becomes increasingly freighted
with ethical implications, prominent discourses about good food exert a strong influence
over consumers’ everyday practices. These discourses, however, may distort the underlying
material conditions that consumers encounter.
The ethics of food consumption are receiving greater attention, but such emphasis
does not reliably translate in a universal normative direction. On the one hand, we need to
recognize the unique geographical context through which meanings, practices, and
economies of food emerge. On the other hand, the climate crisis requires urgent action, and
intensive animal farming causes widespread suffering. Neither a relativist nor universalist
approach adequately recognizes the unique scalar challenges posed by contemporary food
systems. Sonnino and Milbourne (2022) put forward a progressive place-based approach
that bridges such a divide by theorizing the complex scalar intersections of food system

22
transformation. Whatever scalar conceptions or methodologies we use, critical food
scholars should be wary of indiscriminately applying prominent ideas of ethical food from
the global North to other contexts. We must start by understanding the discursive and
material expression of food ethics in situated contexts. From there, we can better navigate
the barriers that prevent cooperation and undertake the work necessary to build broader
linkages that transform food systems.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Funding
This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
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