Futures in the present: Food allergy disclosures at work

Food and work are often inextricably linked in Japan. However, for those with multiple food allergies, such expectations can be difficult to navigate. Drawing on fieldwork with young adults since 2017, this article explores how they experience workplace expectations to eat and drink together, and the different strategies they use to negotiate eating with others as they move from student life to being a shakaijin (social adult). For people with experience of severe food allergies, the potential of a negative future is ever-present in the guise of the possibility of experiencing a severe allergic reaction. However, because food is strongly implicated in the building and maintenance of social relations, avoiding food can create social risks. These risks are heightened when food sharing is a feature of workplace relations, both within and between companies. Gaining a negative reputation for being difficult because of not sharing food or joining workplace events can have potential consequences on promotion and is also a future to avoid. I argue that imagined futures are ever-present in allergy disclosures, and it is disclosure itself which operates as a juncture in which potential futures that exist in individuals' present – through their imagination – are used to open different possible futures in life and at work. This article consequently explores the important, but often overlooked, influence of food on workplace relationships and how the labour of disclosure contributes to creating, shaping, and avoiding imagined potential futures.