Public Lecture delivered at Vienna University on climate change

Professor Anne Mette Fisker-Nielsen of Soka University (now FILA) delivered a lecture on the culture of meat consumption in Japan in relation to climate change and youth responses in Japan. This invited talk was part of Vienna University, Department of East Asian Studies’ public lecture series focusing on recent research in Japanese studies.

While awareness of the impact of meat consumption on our planetary crises has increased significantly across European countries where millions of youths can be seen to demand policy and governmental change to delivering more sustainable plant-based food options, the lecture explored why this is not the case in Japan. From three years of firsthand research and around 100 interviews, meat consumption can be said to present in Japan an interconnected macro-micro level government and business praxis that pivot around silencing the environmental impacts and the exploitative nature of factory farming. The lecture discussed how as one of the wealthiest and most significant participants in globalised imports and world trade – in raw materials, meat and other food stuff – Japan’s biophysical metrics makes it as major contributor to climate change through the nature of its consumerism, exploring how youth climate action feature within this context.

The talk explored also the effect of education to begin to un-silence [for interlocutors and their peers] the way these strategically hidden climate consequences link to embodied social sensibilities of hitherto unquestioned Japanese identity practices

More details can be found here, where a recording of the lecture will also be made available soon.

Professor

Anne Mette Fisker-Nielsen

ANNE METTE FISKER-NIELSEN

Specialized Field

Social Anthropology of Contemporary Japan; Anthropology of Religion and Politics; Anthropology of Gender;  Anthropology of Cosmopolitanism; Komeito and Soka Gakkai; Anthropology of Climate Change.

Research theme

Gender in Contemporary Japan; Contemporary Soka Gakkai; Climate Change and Youth Climate Action in Japan, Carnivorism and Youth Consumer Identities in Japan.