Tsukemono and the Anthropocene in Your Gut: Emplacement, Awai, and the Apertures of Micropolitical Analysis
Aya H. Kimura, University of Hawai‘i-Mānoa
Moderator: Victor Seow, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University
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Abstract: Tsukemono (Japanese pickles) typically involved fermentation and highly localized vegetable varieties, but has undergone significant changes since the late 19th century. The story of tsukemono enriches our understanding of the modern antibiotic turn and the contemporary probiotic modulations. Antibiocene (Kirchhelle 2023) or disturbance in microbiome both at human and ecosystemic levels, is resulting in serious health and environmental crises. In response, fermented foods and fermentation are becoming not only a space for healthy eating but for critical reflections on modern antibiotic relations. I introduce the concept of awai or in-betweenness to capture the embodied and co-constitutive relations with microbes. The concept offers an insight into place-based repertoire to tackle the challenges of the Antibiocene that takes stock of existing linguistic and cultural heritages.
About our speaker: Aya H. Kimura is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawai`i-Mānoa and researches intersections among science, sustainability, and gender relations. She also serves as Senior Sustainability Advisor for the College of Social Sciences at the University of Hawai`i- Mānoa and the Director for the Center for Sustainability Across Curriculum, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). She has MA in Environmental Studies (Yale) and Ph.D. in Sociology (University of Wisconsin-Madison). Her books include Radiation Brain Moms and Citizen Scientists: The Gender Politics of Food Contamination after Fukushima (Duke University Press: recipient of the Rachel Carson Book Award from the Society for Social Studies of Science), Hidden Hunger: Gender and Politics of Smarter Foods (Cornell University Press: recipient of the Outstanding Scholarly Award from the Rural Sociological Society), Science by the People: Participation, Power, and the Politics of Environmental Knowledge (Rutgers University Press, co-authored with A. Kinchy), and Food and Power: Visioning Food Democracy in Hawai‘i (University of Hawai`i Press, coeditor with K. Suryanata). Her forthcoming book is Fermenting for the Future: Japanese Pickles and Microbial Foodways (Spring 2026, University of California Press).