Research Seminar - 6th October 2026

RESEARCH SEMINAR

October 6^th, 2026 / 2:00 – 4:00 PM

Campus Gérard Pélisson – Institut Lyfe

25-27 chemin du Trouillat 69130 Ecully

2.00pm – 2.30pm Juliette Bretéché PhD candidate at laboratoire RITM, Université Paris Saclay & Food design lab, l'École de design Nantes Atlantique “Regional Food Cultures and the Transition to Plant-Based Eating: A Design and Consumer Behaviour Research”

Abstract

Achieving environmental sustainability and health objectives requires a shift towards more plant-based diets. Seeking to identify levers that may support this transition, we aim to better understand the role of food cultures at a regional level in people's eating habits. This research through design (or ‘project-grounded research') consists of an exploratory participatory study followed by co-creation workshops leading to the formulation of various design hypotheses. Combining mixed and participatory methods generates rich data grounded in eaters' everyday lives and experiences, resonating with the theoretical frameworks underpinning the research: practice theory and the concept of appropriation of an experience. Based in France, and more specifically in the Brittany region, this research shows that the regional food culture is deeply appropriated and integrated into everyday practices, whereas a plant-based diet is only partially appropriated. The regional food culture appears to provide a meaningful basis for supporting the appropriation of a more plant-based diet.

Biography

Juliette Bretéché is a PhD candidate in design and consumer behavior at laboratoire RITM, Université Paris Saclay and Food design lab, l'École de design Nantes Atlantique. Working at the intersection of design, food practices, and environmental sustainability, her current research explores how regional food cultures shape eating habits and how they can support the transition towards more plant-based diets, using comprehensive participatory approaches.

Abstract

Japanese chefs occupy a distinctive position in Parisian gastronomy, working in two adjacent but institutionally and culturally distinct fields: Japanese cuisine and French cuisine. Drawing on interviews and ethnographic research with Japanese culinary workers, and an analysis of historical documents, this paper describes the development of a Japanese presence in these two distinct gastronomic fields in Paris. It then examines how culinary mobility shapes claims to value and career trajectories across these fields. I argue that mobility-between Japan and France, through restaurants and regions, and across culinary traditions-does more than facilitate the transfer of skills. It enables chefs to convert their training, national background, and embodied sensibilities into different forms of culinary capital. In Japanese restaurants, the presence of a Japanese chef may authenticate the cuisine, including in businesses owned or managed by non-Japanese actors. In French cuisine, Japanese identity is more often recast as a basis for individual authorship, associated with precision, restraint, and a distinctive aesthetic sensibility, even when chefs describe themselves as cooking French food with French ingredients. Yet mobility is not uniformly enabling. Temporary visas, demanding workplace hierarchies, linguistic barriers, and dependence on employers can leave chefs circulating through precarious positions. Conversely, prolonged settlement may weaken professional ties to Japan and turn Paris from a career gateway into a trap, making return increasingly difficult. Mobility and immobility each carries its own risks, including confinement within ethnicized or subordinate occupational roles. Comparing trajectories of return, onward movement, and settlement, the paper shows how career-making depends on chefs' uneven ability to move, remain, and convert mobility into recognized skill, authenticity, and authorship.

Biography

James Farrer is Professor of Sociology and Global Studies at Sophia University in Tokyo. His research has focused on the contact zones of global cities, including ethnographic studies of foodways, nightlife, sexuality, and expatriate cultures. His publications include The Global Japanese Restaurant: Mobilities, Imaginaries and Politics (with David Wank) and Globalization and Asian Cuisines: Transnational Networks and Contact Zones. He leads a public ethnography project on neighborhood Tokyo foodways (www.nishiogiology.org).