Doctoral Dissertation Research: Community Organization After Major Disasters

University Of Texas At Austin, Austin TX

Investigators

Abstract

Contemporary research on the profound impacts of major disasters has demonstrated that, in addition to creating sizable material damage, disasters are influential moments that shape how communities understand their social roles as victims, citizens, and activists. Within this context, protests and other forms of collective action are among the most visible evidence of the larger social consequences of disasters. This project investigates how major disasters influence the practices of social movements, focusing on the case of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, which began on March 11, 2011 when a 9.0 earthquake triggered a devastating tsunami and multiple reactor meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Our project is a study of anti-nuclear and anti-racism social movements in Japan and the ways that the 2011 disaster has shaped how these community organizations understand and respond to the key issues of human rights, citizenship, and racial inequality. In particular, this project examines how the revival of anti-nuclear protests since 2011 has laid the groundwork for the recent growth of anti-racism activism, which has emerged in part as a response to an increasing trend of anti-Korean and anti-foreigner hate speech in Japan. Using participant observations, interviews, and social media data analysis, this project seeks to better understand how communities organizing after major disasters navigate heightened political stakes while confronting longstanding structures of social inequality and discrimination. This study employs a mixed methodology of ethnography, interviews, and social media content analysis to examine how anti-nuclear and anti-racism social movement networks actively negotiate cultural meanings around "citizenship" in post-disaster Japan. Our analysis relies on a total of twenty months of ethnographic research in Tokyo (June 2014 to July 2014; August 2015 to July 2016) and Osaka (September 2014 to March 2015), as well as social media content analysis. We have selected Tokyo and Osaka as field sites for the following reasons: 1) they comprise the largest urban areas in Japan, 2) they are the largest sites for anti-nuclear and antiracism activities, and 3) the co-PI has already established research contacts and institutional affiliations. Anti-nuclear and anti-racism social movements in Tokyo have national influence and are comprised of dense and complex networks. Findings from this study will contribute to human rights policy debates on the issues of social inequality and racial discrimination following major disasters.