Through the liminal: an early journey of genome-edited tomato in Japan—seedling–table–earth

This study offers an anthropological analysis of the early societal journey in Japan of the world’sfirst commercially released genome-edited tomato, the SRHGABA, conceptualizing it as asocietal and planetary rite of “passage.” Treating the tomato as a hybrid actor embedded inecologies and social infrastructures, the study first explores how its cultivation and circulationhas generated apprehension and elusiveness exceeding standard risk metrics. This is partly dueto the crop’s undetectability—it contains no foreign genes—rendering it less radical thanconventional GMOs. Next, the study advances a theory of dynamis and dynamist rites, viewingthe current transitional stage of adoption as a contradictory and suspended spatiotemporal journey.It draws on liminality and liminoid formations to highlight this limbo-like phase, whichnonetheless harbors an undercurrent of potent possibility. The research foregrounds pre-reflective,magico-religious attunements (e.g. awe-like receptivity), arguing that they lie deeper than ethicalstances or anticipatory care. Amid current preparations to export genome editing to Asiancountries, this study’s use of an ethnographic case from the region illuminates the potential andconcerns of genome editing adoption that are likely to emerge across Asia and the world in thenear future.Keywords: genome-edited, rites of passage, dynamis, multispecies, liminalit