Publications

Book
Routledge Handbook of Japanese Culture and Society
Bestor, Victoria Lyon, Theodore C Bestor, and Akiko Yamagata, ed. 2011. Routledge Handbook of Japanese Culture and Society. Routledge, 344. Abstract

The Routledge Handbook of Japanese Culture and Society is an interdisciplinary resource that focuses on contemporary Japan and the social and cultural trends that are important at the beginning of the twenty-first century. This Handbook provides a cutting-edge and comprehensive survey of significant phenomena, institutions, and directions in Japan today, on issues ranging from gender and family, the environment, race and ethnicity, and urban life, to popular culture and electronic media. Written by an international team of Japan experts, the chapters included in the volume form an accessible and fascinating insight into Japanese culture and society. As such, the Handbook will be an invaluable reference tool for anyone interested in all things Japanese. Students, teachers and professionals alike will benefit from the broad ranging discussions, useful links to online resources and suggested reading lists. The Handbook will be of interest across a wide range of disciplines including Japanese Studies, Cultural Studies, Anthropology, Sociology and Asian Studies in general.

Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World (Japanese Edition)
Tsukiji: the Fish Market at the Center of the World has also been published in a Japanese translation, titled simply Tsukiji. M. Wanami translated the book, and Professor S. Fukuoka wrote an introduction to the Japanese edition. ISBN 4907818882.
Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World
Bestor, Theodore C. 2004. Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World. University of California Press. Abstract
Located only blocks from Tokyo's glittering Ginza, Tsukiji--the world's largest marketplace for seafood--is a prominent landmark, well known but little understood by most Tokyoites: a supplier for countless fishmongers and sushi chefs, and a popular and fascinating destination for foreign tourists. Early every morning, the worlds of hi-tech and pre-tech trade noisily converge as tens of thousands of tons of seafood from every ocean of the world quickly change hands in Tsukiji's auctions and in the marketplace's hundreds of tiny stalls. In this absorbing firsthand study, Theodore C. Bestor--who has spent a dozen years doing fieldwork at fish markets and fishing ports in Japan, North America, Korea, and Europe--explains the complex social institutions that organize Tsukiji's auctions and the supply lines leading to and from them and illuminates trends of Japan's economic growth, changes in distribution and consumption, and the increasing globalization of the seafood trade. As he brings to life the sights and sounds of the marketplace, he reveals Tsukiji's rich internal culture, its place in Japanese cuisine, and the mercantile traditions that have shaped the marketplace since the early seventeenth century.
Doing Fieldwork in Japan
Bestor, Theodore C, Patricia G Steinhoff, and Victoria Lyon Bestor, ed. 2003. Doing Fieldwork in Japan. University of Hawaii Press. Abstract

Doing Fieldwork in Japan taps the expertise of North American and European specialists on the practicalities of conducting long-term research in the social sciences and cultural studies. In lively first-person accounts, they discuss their successes and failures doing fieldwork across rural and urban Japan in a wide range of settings: among religious pilgrims and adolescent consumers; on factory assembly lines and in high schools and wholesale seafood markets; with bureaucrats in charge of defense, foreign aid, and social welfare policy; inside radical political movements; among adherents of "New Religions"; inside a prosecutor's office and the JET Program for foreign English teachers; with journalists in the NHK newsroom; while researching race, ethnicity, and migration; and amidst fans and consumers of contemporary popular culture.

Neighborhood Tokyo
Bestor, Theodore C. 1989. Neighborhood Tokyo. Stanford University Press.

- Winner of the 1990 Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award. - Winner of the 1990 Hiromi Arisawa Memorial Award, sponsored by the AAUP and the Japan Foundation. - Winner of the 1990 Robert Park Award, sponsored by the American Sociological Association.

Book Chapter
Washoku, Far and Near: UNESCO, Gastrodiplomacy, and the Cultural Politics of Traditional Japanese Cuisine
Stalker, Nancy K., ed. Forthcoming. “Washoku, Far and Near: UNESCO, Gastrodiplomacy, and the Cultural Politics of Traditional Japanese Cuisine.” Devouring Japan: Global Perspectives on Japanese Culinary Identity, edited by Nancy K. Stalker. Oxford University Press.
The Fascinating Arabesque of Tsukiji(築地は美しきアラベスク)
Endo, Naotaro. 2017. “The Fascinating Arabesque of Tsukiji(築地は美しきアラベスク).” TSUKIJI WONDERLAND. Tokyo: Yama to Keikokusha.
築地から見えてくる日本の強みと弱み
Sato, Chie. 2017. “築地から見えてくる日本の強みと弱み.” ハーバード日本史教室, 188-206. Tokyo: Chuokoron-Shinsha Inc.
   Tsukiji at the End of an Era
Wigen, Karen, Sugimoto Fumiko, and Cary Karacas, ed. 2016. “ Tsukiji at the End of an Era.” Cartographic Japan: A History in Maps, edited by Karen Wigen, Sugimoto Fumiko, and Cary Karacas. University of Chicago Press.
Kaiten-zushi and Konbini; Japanese Food Culture in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Bestor, Theodore C. 2006. “Kaiten-zushi and Konbini; Japanese Food Culture in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Fast Food/Slow Food: The Cultural Economy of the Global Food System , edited by Richard Wilk. Altamira Press.
kaiten-zushi.pdf
Inquisitive Observation: Following Networks in Urban Fieldwork
Bestor, Theodore C. 2003. “Inquisitive Observation: Following Networks in Urban Fieldwork .” Doing Fieldwork in Japan, edited by Theodore C Bestor, Patricia G Steinhoff, and Victoria Lyon Bestor. University of Hawaii Press.
bestor_-_inquisitive_observation.pdf
Bestor, Theodore C. 2001. “Markets: Anthropological Aspects.” International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 9227-9231. Abstract

Markets are so routinely regarded as fundamentally economic institutions that long–standing and quite varied anthropological perspectives on them are often overlooked. Anthropological attention focuses on patterns of individual and small–group exchange relationships within specific markets, on institutional structures that organize markets, and on the social, political, and spatial hierarchies through which markets link social classes, ethnic groups, or regional societies into larger systems. Anthropological studies of markets analyze them as nodes of complex social processes and generators of cultural activity as well as realms for economic exchange. Anthropologists' interests in markets, therefore, are partially distinct from – although certainly overlapping with – the concerns of economists.

markets_bestor.pdf
Journal Article
MOST F(L)AVORED NATION STATUS: THE GASTRODIPLOMACY OF JAPAN'S GLOBAL PROMOTION OF CUISINE
Bestor, Theodore C. 2014. “MOST F(L)AVORED NATION STATUS: THE GASTRODIPLOMACY OF JAPAN'S GLOBAL PROMOTION OF CUISINE.” Gastrodiplomacy, no. 11: 59-62.
2014_-_gastrodiplomacy_most_flavored_nation_bestor.pdf
Japan and the Sea
Bestor, Victoria Lyon, and Theodore C Bestor. 2014. “Japan and the Sea.” Education About Asia 19 (2): 50-56.
bestor_2014_eaa.pdf
Disasters, Natural and Unnatural: Reflections on March 11, 2011, and Its Aftermath
Bestor, Theodore C. 2013. “Disasters, Natural and Unnatural: Reflections on March 11, 2011, and Its Aftermath.” The Journal of Asian Studies 72: 763-782.
bestor_2013_jas.pdf
Cuisine and Identity in Contemporary Japan
Bestor, Theodore C, and Victoria Lyon Bestor. 2011. “Cuisine and Identity in Contemporary Japan .” Education about Asia 16 (Winter 2011): 13-18.
bestor_bestor_2011_-_cuisine_and_identity.pdf
How Sushi Went Global
Bestor, Theodore C. 2000. “How Sushi Went Global.” Foreign Policy 121: 54-63.
bestor_2000_-_how_sushi_went_global.pdf
Magazine Article
築地を訪ねて40年(40 years in Tsukiji)
Nakazawa, Shinichi, ed. 2017. “築地を訪ねて40年(40 years in Tsukiji).” Gendaishiso, 45-13, 12-16.