Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

MICRO-POLITICS OF RADIATION

2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 46; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14672715.2014.935138

1472-6033

David Slater, Rika Morioka, Haruka Danzuka,

Political and Economic history of UK and US

ABSTRACTThe triple disasters of 11 March 2011 in northeastern Japan have exacerbated existing vulnerabilities and created new ones all over the Tohoku region. In Fukushima, the fear of radiation has been compounded by the perception of the state's failure to provide timely and relevant information to local residents. This lack of information has particularly affected one of the most vulnerable segments of the population, young mothers with children, forcing many to make impossible choices between supporting the economic rebuilding of their communities and protecting their children from the threat of radiation. Based on detailed ethnography and interviews conducted from just weeks after the disaster, this article discusses the ongoing struggle of women to find a place of safety and a voice of protest in the face of local and national efforts to silence their fears. The women in this area, I do not think that they really want to get organized. Especially the younger women, they do not have the background or independence that we used to. They are more timid. They need to fight harder if they want real change.—A labor organizer from Fukushima, female, late sixties Sometimes I look up to Fukushima, all of those people pushed off their land by radiation, and especially the mothers with babies, and I think, "If this does not make them active, nothing will." I mean, it is only so long we can keep marching down here if they do not join us.—An organizer of the protests in Tokyo, male, late twenties Critical Asian Studies ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe interviews and fieldwork presented here are the result of diverse projects, funded in different ways. Slater's data was in part collected through a grant from the Toyota Foundation. Slater and Danzuka collected data as part of the "Voices from Tohoku" project (tohokukaranokoe.org) funded by the Grant in Aid for Scientific Research. Also, data was conducted in collaboration with the "Long-term Sustainability through Place-based, Small-scale Economies" project of the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature in Kyoto, Japan.Notes1 Despite a range of theories on social movements, this key dynamic is acknowledged most often, from more classical works such as McAdam 1996 to more "new" social movements such as Melucci Citation1980; Laraña, Johnston, and Gusfield 1994; and Buechler Citation1995.2 The early literature on local politics in rural Japan was written largely in a modernization framework (for example, Fukutake Citation1967) with the scholarly interest in rural politics seeming to diminish as the popular and economic prosperity of many rural regions declined, although see Mulgan Citation2000 for a more recent review of some of the literature.3 The data on women as grassroots organizers and the different sorts of impediments to mobilization in Japan are quite developed, in both Japanese and English.We draw on this literature in the more socio-cultural context (as opposed to the policy and voting survey literature). Useful examples from the pre–3.11 period include Pharr Citation1982; LeBlanc Citation1999; Khor Citation1999; Eto Citation2005; Oogai Citation2005; Furumura Citation2005; Takao Citation2006; Dales Citation2007; Eto Citation2008; Nakamura, Kiyohara, and Mori Citation2004. In the post–3.11 context, only a few full studies exist, but useful research notes include Slater Citation2011; Saito Citation2012 and Freiner Citation2013.4 The question of vulnerability and differential vulnerability is a key component in virtually all anthropological studies of disaster today. See Oliver-Smith Citation1996 for a review of this literature and Smith Citation2013 for a more recent breakdown of the concept. For a review of the theoretical formulation of the term, seeWisner, Blaikie, and Cannon 2003 and Davis 2003. In the 3.11 context, we see Brittingham and Wachtendorf Citation2013 on differential vulnerability relative to people with disabilities, but more often, the term is used in a more psychological sense (rather than to identify vulnerability in a demographic, economic, or political sense aswe use it in this article).5 Demographic and economic decline in Tohoku is best documented by Matanle and Rausch 2011. Mock Citation2014 provides a more anthropological perspective. Iuchi, Johnson, and Olshansky 2013 identify possible post–3.11 demographic decline patterns.6 Reliable numbers are not available in part due to the fact that many are forced to move among different temporary locations. According to Fukushima Prefecture, 56,920 people have fled their homes in the prefecture and were staying in other prefectures as of 7 March 2013 (Fukushima on the Globe n.d.).7 So central is this tension between safety and profit to almost every disaster situation—both in terms of the safety measures not taken to protect profit margins leading to disaster and the emphasis on economic recovery over all other definitions of recovery—that it is difficult to find detailed study that does not include some aspect therein, although few give specific attention to the issue. Tierney and Oliver-Smith 2012 differentiate "social" dimensions as opposed to economic in a general way. The most articulate reviews are by Phelps, Bunnell, and Miller 2011 in Indonesia, and by Adams Citation2013 in the context of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.8 The authors collected all of the data presented here.9 For a fuller articulation of the dynamics of volunteer work and fieldwork, see Gill, Steger, and Slater 2013.10 See Slater Citation2011, and here for their website onna100nin.seesaa.net/.11 See Segawa Citation2011; Tkach-Kawasaki Citation2012; and Slater, Nishimura, and Kindstrand 2012.12 Japan Times 2014.13 The literature on the examination of fear has seen a resurgence, mostly in the context of terrorism and fear of ethnic others, prompted by Glassner's scholarly work (1999 [Construction]), but more his popular work (1999 [Culture]). In attempting to understand fear as more than a personal or individual emotion, a number of works stand out. Wildavsky and Dake 1990 link fear to risk. Tudor Citation2008 outlines ways fear can permeate all of society and Linke and Smith 2009 expand the focus to identify the prevalent and chronic effects of fear, which they call "cultures of fear." Lazic Citation2013 looks specifically at the role of fear in Fukushima in the context of media reporting. See Jasper 1998 on the role of emotions more generally in social movements.14 While the subject of risk has been an important part of discussions of disaster, as well as modernity itself, at least since Beck Citation1992, other important formulations of risk have situated the metric of risk within the larger social structure and the sets of cultural values that help individuals and communities define risk as a way of better comprehending how it is actually understood and acted upon in any human society. These include relative to disaster, Douglas and Wildavsky Citation1983, and Bord and O'Conner Citation1990. Works that take a similar approach in the context of a specific critique of Beck include Wildavsky and Dake 1990 and Eliot 2002. Lyng Citation2004 expands the critique into a more positive research paradigm. Smith Citation2013 examines risk in a similar vein through the context of disasters particularly.15 See Yamaguchi Citation2013 for the ways in which "safety" is discussed, in this case, relative to food policy.16 Morioka Citation2013.17 Despite the shared fear from radiation suffered in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Fukushima case bears closer resemblance to the patterns associated with Minamata and mercury poisoning in terms of the internal conflict within residents of affected communities. See George Citation2001 and Keibo Citation2001.18 See Uno Citation1993 for an insightful review of the use of this term in modern history. And see Borovoy Citation2005 for a more recent ethnographic study that lays out the possible conflicts between roles in times of crisis.19 Interestingly, very few of the mothers we talked to who have evacuated reported any struggle with their husbands over taking the children. This may be a function of our sample: that mothers who did struggle or who could not take their children would not leave, and those who stayed would be less likely to report such struggle.20 See Higgins Citation2011 for an article on the law. See Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications 2011 for the request itself.21 Even though a number of the more active women used the internet to gain information and even forge alliances with other like-minded women, no one we talked to knew of this attempt by the government to censor information.22 See Repeta Citation2014 for a review of the issue and links to related sources.23 The term "classification struggles" was originally Bourdieu's (Citation1984). Bourdieu writes that "what is at stake in these struggles over meaning of the social world is power over the classificatory schemes and systems which are the basis of the representations of the groups and therefore of their mobilization and demobilization." As such, the above difference between nuclear and extended family, as well as the definition of a "rumor," are also examples of classification struggles, with the difference being the heightened level of conscious awareness and manipulation that comes with strategic deployment—or struggle—of "activist" terminologies.24 Both Pharr Citation1982 and LeBlanc Citation1999 discuss the difficulty that women have in entering politics or even becoming politically engaged.25 Kitanaka Citation2011, 64.26 Lebra Citation1976, 217.27 Ibid. Unlike the previous examples, this is less an example of a relatively direct effort by the state to direct the rebuilding effort, often at the expense of dissenting views, than it is the result of a shift in overall social discourse, in which the state has participated.28 See, for example, Japanese Society of Social Psychology n.d.; Katsumasa Citation2011; Horinouchi Citation2011; Miyachi Citation2011; Wada Citation2011; and, more popularly, Yahoo Health Care n.d.29 Kokoro no kea (care of the heart) was referred to before the disaster in different contexts, but beginning in the days immediately after the disaster, practitioners in the field have been using the term to talk about the importance of providing emotional care, almost as important as providing food and blankets. See McLaughlin Citation2013 for a review from the religious side.30 Morioka 2014 has written on gendering of health risk in the Fukushima crisis. Once, Slater heard of a man who had been hospitalized and other men joking that he probably had shinkeishitsu, a funny joke because he was a man not a woman, it was later explained.31 Slater, in preparation.