Awards

• Winner of Fred Buttel Outstanding Scholarly Achievement Award (for book) 2014 (United States)

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9780801478598

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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

<p> 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

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

Author Information

Aya Hirata Kimura is Assistant Professor of Women's Studies at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.

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