FUJITA, Shu
Research Associate
Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa,
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
3-11-1 Asahi-cho, Fuchu-shi,
Tokyo, 183-8534, Japan
Email: fujitashu[at]aa.tufs.ac.jp
Personal Homepage: https://sites.google.com/view/shufujita
Research interests: Contemporary Cuisine, Cultural Anthropology, Visual Anthropology, Food Culture, Arts, Science, Technology and Society
I think about food and art through a cultural anthropological study of contemporary cuisine.
I research contemporary cuisine, which has been seen in some of the finest restaurants globally since the late 2000s. This style is based on traditional fine cuisine, such as French cuisine, but goes beyond it, attempting to create an avant-garde expression of the nature and culture of the place where the restaurant is located. For example, Central, a contemporary Peruvian restaurant, cooked the various native varieties of corn grown in one region of the Andes in a variety of ways in order to evoke the region.
Through my fieldwork in Peruvian and Japanese restaurants I investigate how people approach cooking in contemporary restaurants. By intersecting my findings with research in the anthropology of food, the anthropology of art, and the anthropology of science and technology, my research aims to answer questions such as: what is the act of cooking, and what is art?
Recent Interests:
In recent years, cultural anthropology has needed a way to communicate field realities without going through the framework of "culture" or "society, and thus has come to have interest on ethnographic films. However, it requires a high level skills to create ethnographic films that do not simply trace events, but rather lead to some kind of thought process. By referring to the KJ method, a method of organizing ideas, I am seeking a way to make it possible for anyone to create "thought-provoking films," which are films that provoke thought based on the reality of the field.
Research Projects:
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