About Me

My research and teaching interests focus on the intersection of technoscience and gender particularly in the fields of food and environmental issues in Asia. My dissertation examined how nutritional science can structure the meanings of, and prescriptions for, the world food problem. I spent one year conducting field research in Indonesia for this project. Other topics I have researched include the politics of genetically modified organisms particularly in developing nations, and local food movements in Japan. I have also been working more recently on issues of participation and democracy in food governance.

Before getting a Ph.D. in Sociology from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2006, I received my MA in Environmental Studies from Yale University in 2001. It is from my concern with environmental and sustainability issues that I developed my interests in food and its relationship to gender. I see food as an excellent entry point to larger ecological, social, cultural, and economic issue. My work is really to use food as a lens through which we can better understand power relations in society.

I have taught courses such as "Women and Social Policy," "Women and Health," "Feministm ethodologies," "Science and Technology in the Modern World," and "Environment, Natural Resources and Society."

My teaching and research interests include issues such as Women, Health and Development; Sociology of Nutrition, Body, and Food; Technoscience and sustainability; Agrofood Systems; East and Southeast Asian Societies.

Courses Regularly Taught

WS305: Women and Health
WS318: Women and Social Policy
WS440: Feminist Methodolgies

Research Areas

Feminist perspectives on science and technology, food, health, and environmental issues. Politics of food in Southeast Asia and Japan

Representative Publications

• "The Chisan-Chisho movement: Japanese local food movement and its challenges," co-authored with Mima Nishiyama, Agriculture and Human Values 25 (1) 49-64, 2008.
• "Who defines the 'needs' of babies?: Scientization of baby food in Indonesia," Social Politics, (forthcoming)
• "The alternative agrofood movement in contemporary Japan," co-authored with Mima Nishiyama, The Chiba University Technical Bulletin of Faculty of Horticulture, 2005.
• "Family planning evolution in RI: book review of 'People, Population, and Policy in Indonesia,'" The Jakarta Post, February 20, 2005.
• "The 'gene revolution' (PDF) in global perspective: a reconsideration of the global adoption and diffusion of GM crop varieties 1996- 2002," co-authored with Frederick H. Buttel, Program on Agricultural Technology Studies Staff Paper Series, No. 9, September 2003.

Syllabi

• Women Studies 440 - Feminist Methodolgies (DOC)
• Spring 2008 Women and Health (DOC)
• Fall 2007 Women and Social Policy (DOC)

Aya Kimura CV

Links

• Visit my blog here