fujitashu

Shu FUJITA

Cultural Anthropology of Contemporary Cuisine

Researchmap

Affiliation

Associate Professor, College of Letters, Ritsumeikan University

Part-time lecturer, Waseda University

Keywords

Cultural Anthropology, Contemporary Cuisine, Food, Art, Visual Anthropology

My Research

I am researching contemporary cuisine from the perspective of cultural anthropology. Contemporary cuisine is a style of cooking that is based on Western haute cuisine but goes beyond it, attempting an avant-garde interpretation of the nature and culture of the place where the restaurant is located. For example, at Central, a contemporary cuisine restaurant in Peru, the colourful native varieties of corn grown in one region of the Andes are cooked individually and combined in a dish that evokes the Andean landscape during the harvest season. By intersecting the results of my research with studies 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 kind of action is cooking, how creativity becomes possible, what deliciousness is, and how globalisation manifests in cuisine.

Alongside the research on cuisine, I am also practising ’evocative film’ and ’evocative composition of photography’, a method of editing video and photographs taken during fieldwork in a way that draws out the potential relationships between them, and workshops (Let’s Learn Fieldwork Through Video Editing) and exhibitions (Doing Fieldwork through an Exhibition) based on these ideas. Some examples can be found on this page.

Academic Works

Doctoral Thesis

  1. Ethnography of a Peruvian Contemporary Cuisine Restaurant, or Anthropology of Cooking. Doctoral Thesis, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the University of Tokyo. [Originally written in Japanese; rough English translation available on request.]

Journal Articles

  1. “Methods of ‘Let’s Learn Fieldwork through Video Editing’: In Pursuit of an Intra-Cinematic Understanding of the Field” (with Hiroto Tsuda). Journal of Asian and African Studies Supplement 6: 115–143. [Originally written in Japanese.]

  2. “Exploring the Thought, Work, and Material Flow in Making: A Study of Culinary Processes in a Peruvian Contemporary Restaurant.” Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies 28: 75–94. [Originally written in Japanese.]

  3. “Toward A Potential Dimension of Cooking: Creation of ‘New Dishes’ and Exploration of ‘Deliciousness’ in a Contemporary Peruvian Restaurant.” Japanese Journal of Cultural Anthropology 88(2): 195–214. [Originally written in Japanese; rough English translation available on request.]

Conference Presentations in English

  1. “Letting Images Connect: A Multimodal Method for Anthropological Thinking.” Workshop “Multimodal Anthropologies across the Pacific,” Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

  2. “The Pursuit of the Local by the Global in Peruvian Contemporary Cuisine.” International Workshop: Food as a Window to the Past: Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

Book Review

  1. “Tim Ingold, Making: Anthropology, Archeology, Art and Architecture, 2013.” Journal of Cultural Anthropology (Bunkajinruigaku Kenkyu) 17: 108–109.

Translation

  1. Casper Bruun Jensen, “Thinking the Earth: New Disciplinary Alliances in the Anthropocene.” Revue de la Pensée d’Aujourd’hui (Gendai Shiso) 45(22): 46–57.

  2. Anna L. Tsing, “Blasted Landscapes (And the Gentle Art of Mushroom Picking).” Revue de la Pensée d’Aujourd’hui (Gendai Shiso) 45(4): 128–150.

  3. (Edit of interview & translation) Anna L. Tsing, “Following the Entanglement which Composes Nature and Culture.” ER 6: 16–19.

For General Public (in English)

Interviewed

  1. (Interviewed by Junya Shinohara) “Innovative Creations in Cuisine, and Other Lessons from Working in Peru’s Globally Acclaimed Restaurant. Interview with Cultural Anthropologist Shu Fujita.” DIG THE TEA.

Essays

  1. “Noma Kyoto (Part 2) — The Second Half of the Course at the Kyoto Pop-up and Comparison with Central in Peru.” Tokyo Art Beat. [Originally written in Japanese and translated.]

  2. “Noma Kyoto (Part 1) — The First Half of the Course at the Kyoto Pop-up.” Tokyo Art Beat. [Originally written in Japanese and translated.]

Research History

2016, Sep. Preliminary fieldwork in Lima, Peru.

2016, Nov.–2017, Aug. Fieldwork at a contemporary cuisine restaurant in Japan.

2017, Sep.–Nov. Fieldwork at a contemporary cuisine restaurant in Peru.

2018, Jul.–2020, Apr. Fieldwork at a contemporary cuisine restaurant in Peru.

Employment

2026, Apr.– Associate Professor, College of Letters, Ritsumeikan University.

2025, Apr.– Part-time lecturer, Waseda University.

2024, Apr.–2026, Mar. Part-time lecturer, Hosei University.

2023, Sep.–2026, Mar. Part-time lecturer, Tokyo University of Agriculture.

2022, Oct.–2026, Mar. Research Associate, TUFS Field Science Commons (TUFiSCo), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

2022, Sep.–2026, Mar. Research Associate, Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

2022, Apr.–2025, Mar. Part-time lecturer, Toyo Eiwa Jogakuin University.

2020, Apr.–2022, Aug. JSPS Research Fellow (DC2).

2020, Apr.–2022, Aug. Part-time lecturer, Teikyo University.

2018, Apr.–2020, Apr. Visiting Researcher, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.

Contact

amanefjt “at” gmail.com