THE POLITICAL NUANCES OF WASHOKU: FROM CULINARY NATIONALISM TO GASTRODIPLOMACY

This thesis examines the role of Japanese cuisine in Japan’s cultural diplomacy as a mean to increase nation-branding and project soft power abroad. From the start of the 21st century, in a broad cultural diplomacy campaign named “Cool Japan”, the Japanese government has incorporated food into a wide series of domestic and international policies with the dual goals of increasing its food exports abroad and improve the image of Japan among foreign audiences. Drawing from academic studies, essays and researches, this dissertation shows how Japanese food has been inscribed into the Japanese government’s political agendas throughout the 20th as a mean of domestic nationalism and, in the 21st century, as a mean of foreign cultural diplomacy. It argues for the multiple ways in which Japanese food intersects with international organizations, domestic concerns over food security and self-sufficiency and notions of authenticity, heritage and nationalism.