Workshop: STS Forum on Fukishima: Building a Transnational Research Agenda and Strategy for Engagement through a Social Scientific Understanding of Disasters & Disaster Sciences

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY

Investigators

Abstract

Disaster science is emerging as distinctive field that incorporates a range of scientific disciplines, and has implications for many aspects of disaster governance. This workshop investigates the social, technical and organizational factors that contribute to or limit disasters, disaster mitigation, and the remediation and recovery efforts that follow major disasters. To address these issues, Japan- and US-based participants use the Fukushima nuclear accident and the closely related disasters that affected Eastern Japan in 2011 to develop new knowledge, making explicit comparisons to Chernobyl, the 1995 Kobe Earthquake, September 11th, Hurricane Katrina and the Kanto Dai Shinsai disaster. Science and Technology Studies theories of epistemic cultures, scientific and disciplinary fields, public and institutional responses to crises, and the relationship between embedded research and policy engagement are used to address key workshop questions. Outcomes include a NSF Workshop Report that lays out major new directions in social scientific studies of disaster, the creation of a transnational network of disaster science researchers with deeper expertise in the intersection of social and technical aspects of disaster, and web site distribution of conference papers and materials.