Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: This article explores the evolving rhetoric of commercial whaling advocates in Japan and Norway, who frame whaling as essential for global, national, and personal health. I show that proponents leverage sustainability discourse and health narratives to present whaling as beneficial for marine ecosystems, national food security, and individual well-being. By coopting the language of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and casting whaling as “healthy,” the whaling industry and its backers challenge the anti-whaling hegemony, portraying it as irrational and unscientific. While the alleged environmental benefits of whaling have been significant to the rhetorical arsenal of the industry since at least the 1990s, a growing emphasis on the personal health benefits of whalemeat suggests the opening of a new front in struggles to influence public opinion.
Source: Japan focus
Author: Nathan Hopson
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Life below water
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,550
OpenAlex ID: W4408533486