OSW

SIGNATURE WORK
CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION 2024

Haunted Seafood: Purity and Danger in the Aftermath of the Release of Fukushima Radioactive Wastewater

Name

Yutong Shi

Major

Cultures and Movements / Cultural Anthropology

Class

2024

About

This paper is based on fieldwork lasting for eight months and includes a discussion about the state policy trend and the news of Fukushima wastewater.

Signature Work Project Overview

In the paper, my close engagement with ethnographic observation and policy analyses delves into the field of purity and danger, risk society, and individuals’ understandings of the state. I have two field sites and I record how food vendors and practitioners react to the conflicts between the market master, the state, and themselves. They maneuver in between the status as migrant workers and citizens in the city to actualize their needs, appropriating their understanding of the state and the government. During the process, food vendors and seafood practitioners dynamically engage with the big state, interpretation of the state policy, and news circulation, carving their personal narratives. The food story happens in the nearby and the art of noticing the nearby emerges in my fieldwork and ethnographic work.

Signature Work Presentation Video