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Hidden Hunger (Cornell University Press)
- Winner of US Rural Sociological Society Outstanding Scholarly Award (2014) Reviews "Drawing upon theoretical foundations in feminist food studies, agrofood studies, and science and technology studies, Kimura constructs a nuanced critique of the discourses and practices that constitute the focus on micronutrient deficiencies as the primary problem of hunger and malnutrition in the developing world. She raises crucial questions about how casting the problem of hidden hunger as a technical matter requiring expert intervention has simultaneously brought attention to women as innocent victims of nutritional ignorance, shamed them for not providing proper nourishment for their children, and silenced their ability to contribute their perspectives despite their intimate knowledge of the experiences of malnutrition and the daily challenges of feeding their families." —Jessica Loyer, Graduate Journal of Food Studies (September 2015) "In Hidden Hunger, Aya Hirata Kimura traces the history of global discourses on nutrition very informatively and clearly, integrating the various scales of conceptualization (from global to the very local, in the slums of Jakarta). Kimura usefully points out and illustrates how government and industry persistently and nonsensically ignore the views and needs of the supposed 'target groups'—women and children."—Carol J. Pierce Colfer, Center for International Forestry Research, author of The Complex Forest: Communities, Uncertainty, and Adaptive Collaborative Management "In Hidden Hunger, Aya Hirata Kimura brings together insights from agrifood studies, feminist food studies, and science and technology studies to challenge the prevailing wisdom surrounding nutrient deficiencies in poor nations. The result is a careful and insightful critique of the dominance of expert knowledge, neoliberal policies, and antidemocratic practices that are transforming food systems without grappling with hunger and malnutrition as experienced by those who are hungry. Kimura successfully shows how 'charismatic nutrients' draw attention away from the socio-political causes and consequences of hunger, increase concentration in food production and marketing, and promote the rise of industrialized food processing, while reframing the problem as one amenable only to expert intervention. In so doing, she also shows how the poor—especially women—are simultaneously silenced and commodified. Kimura has produced a synthesis that is likely to become a model for future work on food, agriculture, and hunger."—Lawrence Busch, University Distinguished Professor, Center for the Study of Standards in Society, Michigan State University |
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Radiation Brain Moms and Citizen Scientists (Duke University Press)
Reviews "Aya Hirata Kimura offers a new and challenging perspective on Fukushima recovery, especially its meaning for citizen science. . . . Kimura's book is well worth examining in depth." — Richard Newman, Metascience "[T]he important information isn’t radiation levels, but the work of women in resisting the dominant narrative. [Kimura] reminds us that 'subaltern people engage in actions that might not look like much but still chip away at the space occupied by authorities' and that this is a significant model for resisting the forces of neoliberal capitalism." — Amy Reddinger, Feminist Collections “Addressing this post-3/11 environment through rich engagement with anthropological subjects, Kimura offers a rigorous theoretical analysis that extends far beyond the circumstances of Fukushima…. A significant contribution to the research areas of science and technology studies, post-feminism, neoliberalism, food studies, nuclear disaster and Japanese society.”— Joel Neville Anderson, International Feminist Journal of Politics “Kimura adds theoretical density to the neoliberal glossing of nuclear energy hazards.... Radiation Brain Moms is a compact monograph and could easily be incorporated into graduate or advanced undergraduate courses in gender, disaster, environment, food and agriculture, or science and technology studies.”— Emily R. Haire, Rural Sociology "Kimura gives a full account of the complexity of the issues she addresses by creating cross-disciplinary linkages that help readers to see the radioactive contamination of food in post-Fukushima Japan from new and multiple perspectives. . . . This book stands out because it reminds us that scholarship is never objective, that social science scholars have to position themselves and that the thin line between scholarship and activism is often blurred. The greatest achievement of this book, however, is to give the marginalized women and citizen scientists a voice outside of Japan." — Cornelia Reiher, Pacific Affairs |
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Food and Power in Hawaii`i (University of Hawaii Press)
Reviews
"A rich compilation of case studies by island scholars and writers, “Food and Power in Hawaii: Visions of Food Democracy” explores the diversity of food challenges faced by the state. Edited by Aya H. Kimura and Krisnawati Suryanata of University of Hawaii at Manoa’s College of Social Sciences, the University of Hawaii Press publication includes discussions on land use policies, a gendered and racialized farming population, benefits and costs of biotechnology, stratified access to nutritious foods, as well as ensuring the economic viability of farms. Defying the reductive approach that looks only at calories or tonnage of food produced and consumed as indicators of a sound food system, “Food and Power in Hawaii” shows how food problems are necessarily layered with other sociocultural and economic problems, and uses food democracy as the guiding framework." - West Hawaii Today
Reviews
"A rich compilation of case studies by island scholars and writers, “Food and Power in Hawaii: Visions of Food Democracy” explores the diversity of food challenges faced by the state. Edited by Aya H. Kimura and Krisnawati Suryanata of University of Hawaii at Manoa’s College of Social Sciences, the University of Hawaii Press publication includes discussions on land use policies, a gendered and racialized farming population, benefits and costs of biotechnology, stratified access to nutritious foods, as well as ensuring the economic viability of farms. Defying the reductive approach that looks only at calories or tonnage of food produced and consumed as indicators of a sound food system, “Food and Power in Hawaii” shows how food problems are necessarily layered with other sociocultural and economic problems, and uses food democracy as the guiding framework." - West Hawaii Today
Published in Fall 2019 from Rutgers University Press
Science by the People: Participation, Power, and the Politics of Environmental Knowledge
Science by the People: Participation, Power, and the Politics of Environmental Knowledge
Kimura (Univ. of Hawaiʻi-Mānoa) and Kinchy (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) critically investigate the complexities of environmental citizen science with attention to citizenship, participation, and structural inequalities...They contribute uniquely to the literature on citizen science by seriously considering power and structural obstacles....While avoiding both cynicism and celebration, Kimura and Kinchy here suggest ways that citizen science can address dilemmas and meaningfully involve people who have been excluded from science.
--A. C. S. Swords, in Choice Magazine
--A. C. S. Swords, in Choice Magazine
