Shisouchizubeta vol.2:English Abstracts and Translations

Shisouchizu beta vol.2 2011 autumn English Abstracts and Translations after the disaster pp. 219-252

Editor in Chief: Translation: Poetry Translation: Jeffrey Angles

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The Disaster Broke Us Apart Prefatory Note

The disaster broke us apart.

Would anyone disagree with this? Would he assert that the disaster has brought us together as one, that Japan has regained its solidarity?

That may, indeed, be one aspect of the situation. Or more precisely, might have been. The exaltation of Japanese society immediately after the earthquake is still a fresh memory. From the mass media to the Internet, everywhere we looked there was disaster information. Companies competed against each other no time. The rapid relief work by the self-defense forces was widely praised, the chief cabinet secretary became a hero for some reason, and the formation of an all-nation cabinet was whispered. Many people (including myself) dreamed that Japan would turn the unprecedented disaster into an opportunity to recover its public spirit, and to break free from the long period of stagnation to be born again into a new country.

The answer can hardly be yes.

The political turmoil is not the only issue. Take the Fukushima nuclear power plant, for example. The government and the electric company have lost credibility caused, all kinds of groups began to measure radiation levels, using their own cialists are divided about the health hazards of low-dose exposure, and no clear standards exist. Every resident of Fukushima and the surrounding area, especially parents with children, must therefore be faced with truly solitary decisions, having to deal with unfamiliar technical terminology such as sieverts, becquerels, halflife, and decontamination. Some families have resorted to voluntary evacuation, while others have on the contrary returned to evacuation zones along with their children. The discrepancies in the sense of urgency caused by the differences in geographical area, not to mention family structure and income, further aggravate the discordance. Victims of the disaster from other prefectures view radioactivity-

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ers address those mothers asking for radiation measurements at public facilities the Internet, claiming that the disaster has not changed Japan in any way, and that

What kind of experience is it to be broken apart?

text I ever wrote.

What I discussed in the essay was the serious question of what the essence of genocides in the mid-twentieth century was. I will omit the details here, but Union, I argued that the cruelty of genocides, lies not in the fact that a vast number of people are killed, but rather in the fact that there is no rational reason behind the choice of killing someone while letting someone else live. That is to say, the life of every person turns into a purely accidental matter or, in other words, lives exist to make that bearable. However, it becomes intolerable when someone is killed, someone else is not, and the choice behind this is purely fortuitous. Killed because of being an enemy, killed because of being a Jew, killed because of being a revolutionary: it is possible to endow such experiences with meaning. They name on a register caught the attention of the person in charge, or dying after being incarcerated just for the sake of reaching a certain quota (something that happened frequently in post-revolution Russia, according to Solzhenitsyn), can never be endowed with meaning.

I do not think I have to elaborate on why I began to think back about this essay after the earthquake.

On that March 11, at 2:46 in the afternoon. Why were some people at the seaside while others were not, why were some people in the lowlands while oth-

ers were on higher ground, why did some people manage to reach higher ground while others were swallowed up by the tsunami? There is absolutely no meaning behind such selection. No narrative. Cases of surviving because the person acted this and that way, or being engulfed by the tsunami because of doing something, are statistically meaningful and they should indeed be used as lessons for the future, but they remain meaningless when attempting to explain each individual death, because of the abundant exceptions. Just reading about the countless episodes that are presented in newspapers and weekly magazines should demonstrate this. Those who survived were lucky and those who did not were unlucky: there is nothing more that can be said. Such is the reality that lies there.

The disaster broke us apart.

We were stripped of meaning, stripped of a narrative, and turned into a probabilistic existence.

The probabilistic sensation spreads out from the disaster areas like waves. The Great East Japan Earthquake has made the various risks that Japan faces explicit.

The danger not only pertains to nuclear power plants. Economists maintain that the government debt will exceed national savings by 2020. Seismologists predict that a Tokai earthquake will occur within the next thirty years, with a nearly 90 percent probability. I have a daughter who was born in 2005. Bearing her age in mind,

can no longer be deemed places where it is easy to live for the next generations.

This is as clear as day, but a certain numbness is rapidly spreading in this country after the disaster, with people thinking “ hood of an earthquake, about the health hazards of low-dose radiation, the more we become trapped in the maze of statistics and numbers, turned into probabilistic entities, losing our solidarity.

What can thought do in such a situation?

What has it been doing in this country until now?

I wrote earlier that the disaster broke us apart.

To be precise, maybe I should have written that we were already fragmented, and the disaster merely made that evident.

The fantasy that all-Japanese-are-middle-class vanished a long time ago.

widening disparity infallibly erodes solidarity. This is the situation that is widely the solidarity among communities, the solidarity at the workplace: these were all swiftly torn down.

In the past few years in Japan, a new form of discourse called “criticism of in their early thirties or younger, such as Tsunehiro Uno and Satoshi Hamano (the former contributed an article for the last issue of ). The core of their contention, in short, was that since entrepreneurs with an annual income of three hundred million yen and contract workers earning three million yen were just the same in terms of being an otaku, just the same in their feverish enthusiasm

Because of this, even though on the surface their discourse presented pop culture analysis or Internet service analysis, it was received as having a unique political implication.

Needless to say, I have been supporting their vision. The last issue of Shifocused on the theme of the shopping mall. I began my inaugural article by talking about the Crocs. . However frivolous this may sound, I still believe that this was one of the most effective ways, if not the only way, to recover solidarity in Japan after a certain period.

This may apply to other countries, too. In countries that have not undergone a civic revolution and where principles and thought only exist as imports from Europe, it is possible for everyone to eat the same things, look at the same things, be possible to go beyond this. In such countries, a peculiar inversion is likely to occur, where precisely principles such as liberalism and communitarianism are frivolously consumed and, on the contrary, the equality of frivolous and obtuse things constitutes a basis for justice (we hope to produce an issue in the future focused on such a conception, including trips to other countries to cover related misguided.

But looking back now after the disaster, it appears so fragile, so trivial.

Entrepreneurs earning three hundred million yen a year and workers earning three million, laughing while watching the same online videos. That may certainly have been a reality in the 2000s. On the other hand, however, while the former can always leave Japan, the latter cannot do the same, no matter how bad the employment or pension conditions may become, and regardless of how much

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radioactivity may be showering down over their heads: this contrast, too, is a reality. The earthquake has exposed this to the light of day. Five months on from the earthquake, people living in East Japan, not just those around Fukushima, are beginning to come to the grim realization that the Japanese government is not very capable, and that in the end, it is up to them to secure their safety and that music, in reality people (and especially parents with children) are secretly, without consulting anyone, beginning to take action on their own accord, using their own funds, in order to secure their safety. million yen are not equal, residents of Tokyo and those of Fukushima are not equal, those in their early twenties or younger and baby boomers are not equal, and unmarried single people and families with children are not equal. Faced with the same disaster, the gravity of the damage and the ability to respond to it differ ment with the power to bridge that inequality, and this is unlikely to change in the next decades.

With the disaster, we became aware that we were fragmented, and that we will continue to be fragmented for years to come.

What kind of role will the equality of consumption play in such a situation?

Will the equality of things really be of help for people? wear the same things. If that is the only way to connect someone with someone else in this country, how can that connecting thread produce a sense of solidarity which overcomes the reality where someone managed to escape the disaster while someone else failed to escape?

Is there a future for the solidarity induced by Internet culture and pop culture?

That is the kind of question that has been in my mind ever since the earthquake.

This is the second issue of

me. I expect the memory of those few hours I spent in Namie town to recur over hama area in Sendai, spent one night in Sendai after attending the symposium presented on this issue, moved up north to Ofunato, traveled southward from there along the coastline, passed through Rikuzentakata before arriving at Kesennuma, pher Kenshu Shintsubo during these trips are presented on various pages on this those few days that the disaster area is vast, that the nature of the disaster, the obfrom place to place. But I also do know that writing something like this may invite reprimands that it is impossible to understand anything merely from two trips.

People make facile calls for solidarity with Fukushima, solidarity with Tohoku.

But reality is not so simple. We have all experienced different disasters. The in-

also understand that for someone like me, who is neither a doctor nor a journalist, neither a sociologist nor an economist, and who has neither on-site experience nor expertise, to feature the disaster in a journal focused on sociocultural criticism, may appear to some as dishonorable. keep going. Towns will be built again in those areas inundated by the tsunami. people will be built at the expense of the young generation. What can the abstract words of thought do in this country facing a slow of death? I continue to struggle to kind of proposals I can make, how I am going to contribute to the reconstruction of Japan, I can only stammer. as a writer and critic with readers, I naively and blindly believe, or rather I want to believe, that talking about the disaster now rather than not talking about it, and publishing a journal now rather than not publishing one, would in some small

. It focuses on the Great East

conditions.

To make this issue, the editorial team went to the disaster areas twice. The town located within the nuclear evacuation zone (this trip to the rural town where cherry blossoms were in full bloom and which was abandoned due to the nuclear accident, with not a single person left, made an extremely strong impression on

interests.

I deliver this issue to you like a prayer, as a citizen born in 1971, who still has a few decades to live, who continues to live in Tokyo with a young daughter, and who loves Japanese culture and the Japanese language.

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the price of this journal is planned to be donated to the disaster areas. To make this writers have all been purchased and no royalties are set. In simple words, the payment will not increase however many additional reprints should be produced; this is the same arrangement as most other magazines have, but we usually implement a different system. That is, in terms of remuneration, the contributors too, are essentially donating the royalty that they would have otherwise earned through this issue of .

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all the contributors who approved of and supported this project.

(b. 1971) Critic, writer, and professor in the School of Culture, Media and Society at Waseda University. He is the author of Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals (University of Minnesota Press, 2009). He is the editor-in-chief of Shisouchizu beta.

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224 Translated by Jeffrey Angles

Pebbles of Poetry 10

Disasters and Words 1

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have a graduation ceremony. one minute behind.

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First, the light in the bathtub went out. The next day, it came back on. Next, the bath

the gods? I let the rain fall over my heart; a cold sweat covers my soul. I might have reached my limit.

We sweat a cold sweat. Not knowing what else to do, I went to the public sauna when evening came. Several tough guys were sitting there in the heat, a cold sweat covering their minds.

mother who died a decade ago.

We are sweating. One man says, “Yesterday in the town of Iitate, I saw a bunch of cows lined up in trucks on their way to the slaughterhouse. There were lots of trucks

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hourglasses, water clocks, sundials, wind clocks, and even the clocks regulating our own stomachs. Could they all still be set to 2:47 p.m., March 11?

sweat covers our minds.

pre-earthquake self even once.

feet.

Such sadness, the day before the earthquake.

The heat of the sauna is as much as I can take. We are sweating. Yet another man says, “I went off to work today in Watari in Fukushima Prefecture. There were piles of rubble everywhere. Then, there were people stuck in the middle of that, working as if

I iron my shirt with hands that are not used to the work. I smooth out the wrinkles one by one. I think back. The wrinkled waves, that black wave.

The evening of the earthquake I set out to meet a friend in a particular big building.

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That was the moment—the moment the disaster really began for me.

the moment that is the present. Hundreds, no, thousands of times. The clips repeated over and over on the screen. The present baring its fangs.

the deep clouds of meaning?

thousands of times... The clips repeated over and over on the screen. My friend taps

empty bus with no one aboard rushes by, going back to the depot. Was that an after-

quake that struck us.

I chase after it, but it quickly blows off into the distance. Fukushima, Fu-ku-shi-ma.

If so, then my clock and your clock are both one minute behind. The backs of our eyes are covered in a cold sweat. electrical line. This surprises me. On the shadow of the electrical line right in front of me, three pigeons. The shadow of the electrical line and the pigeons trembles on the power of nature repeating over and over in my head.

Countless shadows pass in front of the bus stop. One shadow gnashes its teeth, my suit on its hanger. There is no one before me, but it has the same presence as a human being. It breathes, like a piece of clothing waiting for a person to climb inside.

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The bath is broken. In the evenings, I go to the public sauna. Several tough guys were sitting there in the heat, their minds covered in a cold sweat. They are sweating. One room where we are is horribly hot.

Has Fukushima really come to know such sadness? Three pigeons. The shadow of the electrical line and the three pigeons trembles. Beside me is a growing line of people.

are still both one minute behind. The shadows of three birds tremble within my mind and yours as well. The disaster of this earthquake.

to write poetry, to bet your life on the Japanese language. You, my poet friends who have worked so hard, I beg you for poetry, please write poetry, I ask you for the sake of those countless sad souls swallowed by the black wave at 2:46, my poetic friends, I beg you through tears) pass by the bus station.

I get on the bus. It goes by several empty parks, gas stations, and overpasses. I hear

that said this.

If so, then my clock and yours are both one minute behind. There are lots of surgical masks people have used and thrown away in the trash. Therefore, my clock and yours are both one minute behind. We are behind.

come to Fukushima one minute late?

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to handle.

On a certain day of a certain month, I go home. I take my shoes off just inside the door.

I want to get back that one minute, one hour, one day, one lifetime. From the bus winhat in the third bag. My underwear and socks go into the washer. I rinse my hair in the shower. It is broken so the water is cold. Then I scrub my face and my hands. My day is divided into fragments. a go at this very pond. The two of us learning by example as we cast the lure into the my son and I were happy just to cast our rods. How can you stop a day that will never return? That is why the clock is behind.

My ritual is to take my street clothes off just inside the door, put them in bags, and close the mouths of the bags up tight. Why do I do that? Because I believe that someday in the future, my family will return to my house. That will decrease their exposure to the radioactivity which has adhered to my clothes, if even by a small amount.

On a certain day in a certain month, all the books in the library are scattered, all the shelves lean at an angle. I put them one by one onto the bookshelf. Even books turn into rubble. I think of you, who have been looking for your mother all this time in the city of Kesennuma. You were also looking for eight of your missing relatives in Minamisoma. How are you holding up? I, for one, am not doing very well.

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be smashed by you. are lined up in a row. and bawl—the sobs keep on coming. meet up again. Baking heat. We cannot penetrate our way into meaning. One man says, “I heard that some international atomic agency detected high concentrations of radioactive particles in the soil of Iitate in Fukushima and advised the Japanese govof the earth, turning over, and sinking back down again.

the horizon over the water. our memories.

ing angry and pitch black as it started to close in. N-san thought…

Still another man says, “The students who were planning to start at Fukushima University have been dropping out one after another. There were lots of students planning to come to school here in Fukushima—at both private and public schools here—but they be all right? The heat takes me to the very limit of endurance. tsunami, a tsunami!

The train station at Tomioka disappeared.

The station? Yeah, the station. The station disappeared? Yeah, the station disaplaughs with his enlarged face. You little greenhorn, sell your soul. cold sweat covers my mind.

Then who was crying? my mind.

Not me. The wind and land of Fukushima have been crying.

Fukushima.

Come and go, come and go, oh wind! Fall in a drizzle, fall, my tears! Spread out wide, spread, oh earth! I am going, going to the sea.

The devil is pressing his face against the front glass and smiling. Where are you going, rush toward the sea. Have I become a ball of anger or a frenzy of passion? I am frustrated, frustrated, frustrated, to the sea, frustrated, to the sea, to the sea. some payback for all this, gonna smash the sky, get some payback, smash the wind, get some payback, smash the waves, get some payback, move, move, move, move, Oh furious, indignant, sobbing soul! To the sea. quake.

There is no night without a dawn.

(b. 1968) Poet. Lives and works in Fukushima. He is the author of After (Shichosha, Nakahara Chuya Prize) and Pebbles of Poetry (Tokuma Shoten Publishing).

JEFFREY ANGLES (b. 1971) Scholar of modern Japanese literature, translator and associate professor at Western Michigan University. He is the author of Writing the Love of Boys (2011) and has been awarded the Landon Translation Award for his translation of Chimako Tada’s Forest of Eyes (2010).

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Reconstruction Plan Beta: The Cloud City

Disasters and Architecture

pp. 038-050

residents of areas designated for evacuation to live together again1 standard population density in suburban residential areas of 1,000 people/ha, the posed for a city with 9 mega sections of 1 sq. km. within a square ground, with each side of the ground measuring 3 km. Ushitora no Mori, a 1 sq. km. public square for prayers, is positioned within the city, with an axis pointing toward Fukushima to the northeast (denoted in the ancient system based on the assignment of the twelve zodiac animals to the cardinal directions). Every year on March 11, people can gather in this square to remember the victims and offer prayers for their hometowns. Taking note that elementary schools and hospitals made of reinforced concrete remained standing after being hit by the tsunami and were able to act as evacuation shelters, this plan emphasizes public facilities, both the hollowing of city centers, it recognizes a need for a structure that can sustain urban space itself as an autonomous economic bloc. This plan therefore positions tion, with a shopping district in the center. The shopping district has the necessary structure for a place of consumption, with buildings densely lined up with no streets with experimental shops, and a network of alleyways connecting them.

This layout is optimal for rebuilding an autonomous economic zone2.

A city for protecting communities tions are often adopted, among the myriad alternative responses to a disaster. In recent times, Miyake village in Tokyo prefecture (2000) and Koshi village in Niigata prefecture (2004) were subjected to a full evacuation and relocation, and past examples include the relocation of a few settlements in Totsukawa village, Yoshino

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3 .

Besides such relocations, there are around the world many cases of immi-

Reconstructing cities along the power plants of information

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Real and virtual In the case of the full evacuation of Miyake village, most residents were dispersed around Japan, apart from a few who concentrated in inexpensive suburban areas such as Hachioji. To supplement periodic gatherings, bulletin boards were set up on the Internet, as places for exchanging opinions among these evacuees, functioning as a primitive social networking service4. The fact that the residents were able to return to their island in 2005, succeeded in maintaining their community, and were able to recover from the disaster despite a decrease in population and a transition from the real to the virtual and from the virtual back to the real, is a source of hope for the people of Fukushima who were forced to leave their houses.

town and Futaba town, were economically supported by the power plant and related electricity infrastructure industries7. To stop the reactivation of the nuclear power plant, there needs to be a proposal that not only focuses on a new energy policy but also considers the industrial structure of the surrounding areas.

Comparing the electricity industry of the early twentieth century with the current information industry, Nicholas G. Carr points out that while the completion of enormous power plants and power transmission networks freed factories from the need to have their own electric facilities and allowed for locational freedom, the current creation of enormous data centers and high-volume information-communication networks is making cloud computing possible position similar to the power plants within power transmission networks, and are of enormous windowless warehouses crammed with cooling towers to cool down the servers.

Saitama

was fully evacuated, have been displaced to Saitama prefecture. They, along with the administrative functions of the town hall, initially moved to Saitama Super

electricity, high communication speed, and easy procurement of cooling water.

The safety and the abundant water from the rivers in Saitama provide advantageous locational conditions for such new industries.

24-hour city

building of the Saitama Prefectural Kisai High School (Kazo city, Saitama prefecture), which now provides shelter for almost a thousand people5. Saitama does not have a long history; its land was developed in the Edo period with the shifting of the Tone River and the reclamation of a wooded area. This has prompted some to point it out as particularly suitable for town development, because the ties among traditional communities are not as strong as in other prefectures. We can assume that the fact that Saitama accepted communities of Fukushima was not only because of its geographical conditions but also in no small measure because of the characteristic openness of communities in Saitama.

In the past, Fukushima was said to have a strong land base, and the small risk tract industries6. Saitama is said to lack character, but the low occurrence of natural disasters is a characteristic that it should be proud of. The fact that there were no deaths in Saitama prefecture, while neighboring Ibaraki prefecture suffered

the clock. One of the possibilities of industrial use that this entails is the co-generation system that compounds the use of energy. For example, if a natural gas fuel cell system is used for running the data centers, the resulting hot water can be used for cooling and heating in the area. By selectively attracting and concentrating in one area those industries that require a stable functioning around the clock, such as hospitals, logistics, food factories, and bathing facilities, new additional values can be generated in terms of advantages related to energy costs and the twenty-four-hour functioning of public services9.

Presenting a new model for cities

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for praying, and to maintain the life and memory of communities, but it also aspires to present a new model for provincial towns, including new forms of industry, energy, and communities.

rolling blackouts were carried out immediately after the earthquake, cities today are supported by a network of infrastructures, and people live on top of this network. Jane Jacobs once suggested that the basic unit of economy when thinking about the relationship between space and economy is not the nation-state but the city. More recently, Richard Florida pointed out that the new unit of the

Immediately after the disaster in Tohoku, the national highway along the Sansen) which involved sequentially restoring roads coming off the inland Route 4 in an east-west direction11 future, cities along the Sanriku coast will strengthen their relationship with Sendai, tic as neighboring towns to Sendai when the Joban Expressway is restored. This the capital of the Tohoku economic zone, as well as a central city in the second

become outstandingly clear in terms of economic effects10

one of the mega regions of the largest scale, and that it is on its way to forming greater Sapporo areas.

grated zone. Therefore, Japan is prone to falling into the situation where a local interruption in the logistics network causes stoppages around the country, as the recent disaster revealed. Taking the likely future occurrence of large-scale earthquakes in the Tokai, Tonankai, and Nankai areas into consideration, there is the possibility of the entire country being seriously damaged should the national axis be damaged. There is thus the need to consider risk hedging at the national level.

or ill. In the course of forty years, most of the envisaged network of infrastructures has become a reality, updating Japan into an industrial country from an agricultural

struction today.

Plan 2.0 for Remodeling the Japanese Archipelago The fact that risk hedging generates investment in construction is similar to construction in recent years. The concept presented here involves a “seismic ret-

The second land axis:

Considering how to hedge risk on a national level in the future, it will inevi-

that was carried out in the course of forty years, but by dividing an existing network of infrastructure into multiple self-sustaining zones that would be restructured into

sustainable economic zones, just as Toyota Motors disperses its manufacturing Proposed here is the idea of forming a new national axis connecting Tohoku with the Sea of Japan to create a new self-sustainable economic zone, which can funcwill be JR, a company that has dismantled its organization into six regional groups.

A cloud-type industrial distribution Having the expansion and growth of society as the background, the design concept of the original remodeling plan entailed the construction of a tree-type

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gated in Tokyo, and the manufacturing sector scattered in provincial cities. On the other hand, the Plan 2.0 for remodeling Japan that should be adopted in this country, now characterized by the shrinking and maturation of society, aims to restructure the current industrial distribution into a cloud-type structure, where risk is hedged, energy is co-generated, and twenty-four-hour utility facilities (data centers, logistics facilities, hospitals, etc.) are aggregated in inland areas in Hokkaido, Miyagi, Saitama, Toyama, Nara, Okayama, Kagawa, and Saga, which are relatively safe from natural disasters and are well connected by road. Services that generate high additional value and creative industries, such as the information in-

number of volunteers gathered in the disaster areas immediately after the Great the disaster areas, and their activities have been widely reported, but even more impressive was the brilliant management of evacuation shelters by independent for self-government in cities has been advocated in recent years. The idea is to move away from the existing relationship of government providing public services to one in which the public commits to public administration in a proactive manner.

The Great East Japan Earthquake may become a turning point for bolstering the image of the “new public sphere12 What kind of structure should public architecture have to create spaces that

The modality is similar to that of recent school architecture, where the staff room is dismantled, with the spaces for teachers being distributed closer to the classrooms, and classrooms are opened up to explore opportunities of coordinat-

tively simple operations such as telephone operations, including call centers and

Presented here is an image of new public facilities as large-scale architecture that integrates schools, welfare facilities, and commercial facilities13. This image was drawn up to explore new forms like that of contemporary social rehabilitation centers (formerly known as prisons) and presents the spatial arrangement for individuals to be reintegrated into society, where the private rooms gradually munication. It will bring together spaces to be used as schools, spaces to be used as welfare facilities, spaces for lifelong learning, spaces for tourism, and spaces for shopping, and will be managed with the help of local people. Taking inspiration from the fact that shopping malls that assimilate community activities are about to come to being in the United States, a new image for public spaces is here proposed in the third sphere, which integrates public and commercial facilities.

national land, cities, and architecture In the existing structure of public administration, the administrative departments are aggregated in the city halls, and facilities used by the public are segschools, welfare facilities, and tourism facilities. It is in fact better, however, for administrative departments to be distributed close to the different areas of their diverse needs of the day, and in contrast, for facilities used by the public to be integrated so to allow different users to stimulate each other. This is particularly

With the advent of the super-aging society, economic collapse is only a matter of time if no countermeasures are taken, but the recent disaster and the series of following events have exposed the weaknesses of the current Japanese state machinery in which countless institutions bristle, different interests are entwined, and reliance on technology is ever stronger, allowing it to run freely out of control.

Calls for a shift from a top-down urban planning led by the public administration to a bottom-up (town and community development), where residents participate in the process, became frequent after the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995, and bottom-up reconstruction plans are similarly proposed in different

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places in relation to the recent disaster. On the other hand, however, as the cur-

need for a new decision-making process that integrates top-down and bottom-up approaches. to a greater or lesser degree, into the arduous process of the collapse of the state machinery and its restructuring. The state machinery already appears to be out of control. However, inasmuch as challenges of high risk are thrust at us as with the nuclear plant problem, economic problems, and the super-aging society, there is no other way but for involved parties to cooperate repeatedly to make improvement after improvement.

To form an image for how to give shape to a new Japan in this process, architects need to present their visions with ideas on different scales, including the visualization of single ideas, but should instead be developed on an ongoing basis, as logically coherent proposals that make structural problems explicit and incorporate responses from those who directly deal with the issues and from public opinion. This is precisely the role played by Kenzo Tange and the Metabolists, through which Japan transformed itself from an agricultural country into an industrial country.

Just like with arguments against volunteers going to disaster areas carelessly, many were also against architects drawing up plans. However, I would here like

neighboring towns and villages including Hirono, Naraha, Namie, Sendai, and Katsurao have decided either to fully evacuate the towns or to relocate the town hall function to other municipalities, achieving nearly full evacuation.

hinan.html.

6. Information regarding industrial complexes in Iwaki: http://www.city.iwaki.fukushima.jp/ ricchi/004170.html.

7. Hiroshi Kainuma,「フクシマ」論 原子力ムラはなぜ生まれたのか , W. W. 9. In the United States, there are cases of university libraries being open twenty-four hours.

10. Richard Florida, ture and Transportation: http://www.thr.mlit.go.jp/road/jisinkannrenjouhou_110311/kushinohasakusen.html.

12. Known as Public Private Partnership (PPP).

This project has been organized based on the research done by the Toyo University Ryuji Fujimura Shiohara, Moe Tsuzuki).

reconstruction plan.

(b. 1976) Architect and lecturer at Toyo University. He established Ryuji Fujimura Architects in 2005 and withdrew from the doctoral program at the Graduate School of Architecture, Tokyo Institute of Technology, in 2008 after completing course requirements.

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Can Social Media Regenerate Tohoku?

Reconstructing Autonomous Local Communities Reportage

ous areas, with a particular focus on Tohoku, and listened to the voices of many victims of the disaster. The question at the top of this article was the one I always

Three months on from the unprecedented disaster. In this article I would like to consider the roles that the mass media and social media played in the disaster and what that means for future reconstruction efforts, using the “hunger for infor-

First, let us analyze the role that the social media played in this disaster.

Social media have a mediatic aspect in which a diverse array of information is communicated; they also have another aspect, providing an information infrastructure, functioning as a means of making contact, just like mobile phones, faxes, and emails. No one would doubt the important role that the latter aspect played in the recent disaster. Social media proved themselves to be an effective means of making contact in an emergency.

When a disaster causes an emergency, mobile phone lines in that area bepened on this occasion, so it was hard to make calls with a mobile phone for a few hours after the earthquake struck. SMSs (sending short messages using telephone bandwidth), positioned as an additional feature to the telephone network, were also affected, so that this entire system was made dysfunctional.

On the other hand, the current mobile phone network controls the telephone network and the packet communication network separately, and they are designed so that packet communication is enabled even at the time of an emergency. The

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system worked as it was designed to, and a large number of users had no problem in using packet communication as long as they had reception, despite some reports of disruptions. However, although sending emails was possible as long as the user could connect to packet communication, the extraordinary quantity of

environment, it took several hours for an email sent from a mobile phone to arrive ing contact in an emergency.

Meanwhile, the message function of social media such as Twitter, Mixi, and Facebook did not cause any delays, and served the purpose of providing a means bile phone calls and emails turned out to be useless on the day of the earthquake.

The experience made me recognize the importance of securing several methods for making contact.

strengthening of their servers as a response earlier in the spring to the fact that the service was used as an information infrastructure by people supporting the movedid not foresee that Japan would be hit by a disaster of such massive scale, but its terms of being a large information infrastructure providing a stable service.

What about the mediatic role played by social media? disaster that combined severe damage from earthquakes, tsunamis and a nuclear accident, causing different kinds and degrees of loss according to the area, and

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“The ratio of calls for help made on Twitter that were based on correct information

those areas where there was a major blackout or in those in which mobile phone reception was out of range. In fact, people mostly found information about the tsunami on TV (including One Seg) and radio immediately after the earthquake.

Community wireless systems installed in various locations generally play an important role in notifying people about a tsunami after an earthquake, but the recent out by a news organization after the earthquake revealed that many people did not hear the warnings by the community wireless system. In those areas where the wireless system did not work, people could only learn about the critical situation through other means.

Social media, however, were by no means useless as a means for obtaining information. Even in inland areas that did not suffer direct damage from the tsunami, basic infrastructure such as electricity and water failed and gasoline became unavailable, depriving people of the means of transport and causing many to become isolated. In such a situation, many cases were reported in which people in need asked for help through social media, and were rescued by supporters from

son had already moved to another place, or was already rescued by the self-defense forces. My feeling as a volunteer in Ishinomaki was that pure disinformation related

to follow him. He would then send a direct message (which can only be sent to users who follow the sender) asking for the mobile phone number or email address so he could move to concrete actions of rescue.

volunteer center is located within the Ishinomaki Senshu University, and we obtained information through Twitter that the Ishinomaki Red Cross Hospital, which was only

We contacted the self-defense forces and other support organization in a hurry and

of children in a facility for disabled children who got left behind in the central community center at Kesennuma. The manager of the facility, who struggled to get through to the overburdened local line 119, asked the vice governor of Tokyo Naoki Social media are often brushed off as not providing reliable information, but

Inose as a useful reference for relief activities.

Yoshinori Ueno, who has been intermittently volunteering for the Ishinomaki

contribution to the rescue work.

Toward media that supplement information for daily life

concrete assistance for NPOs and NGOs related to disaster relief work, went to Ishinomaki immediately after the disaster and began to carry out support activities based there. Ishinomaki has a large population, and isolated victims appealed for help on Twitter up to one week after the earthquake struck. “Ishinomaki was one of the largest cities that were devastated, and there were many assistance. We kept an eye on Twitter to check whether there were any calls for help,

However, on the downside, it is easy with Twitter to masquerade as someone with false rumors, hindering rescue work?

In the inland areas where no damage from the tsunami were incurred but failure of various basic infrastructure was experienced, the social media played a quake, tsunami, and nuclear accident all caused serious disasters, major newspapers and broadcasting key stations concentrated their resources in covering the nuclear accident, due to the high level of urgency. From the standpoint of a victim of the disaster, however, more important than news about the nuclear disaster was stations, local radio stations, and community FM) and local authorities continued to put out detailed information related to daily needs, such as information about ing, and supermarket opening hours. But local media (especially broadcasting sta-

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tions) have the disadvantage of not being able to provide information unless some-

like Twitter acted to complement precisely these kinds of constraints.

In order to free themselves from such constraints, local media and local authorities opened Twitter accounts soon after the disaster, allowing local people to divide between elderly people who could not access the Internet and young people who could obtain information related to daily needs, when needed, widened to the this gap were also reported. Young people voluntarily began to call out to isolated elderly people, asking, for example, “hello, I saw on the Internet that they are sup-

employing IP multicasting, using local cable TV and broadband lines for areas that are out of service. The destruction of cable TV stations caused by the tsunami created a situation where it was impossible to watch TV in some areas of KesTV was unavailable for a prolonged period even in the city hall, but that Internet special coverage on Ustream, using the information they obtained by doing this for their communication activities.

Some localities not only in Kesennuma but also in Sendai and Iwaki had no TV reception, but were still supplied with electricity and the Internet. In such areas, too, the importance of delivering diverse information in diverse forms was highlighted (although limited to people with Internet literacy) in terms of making it possible to provide information.

In terms of mutual coordination among different types of media, there were interesting attempts at using video-sharing websites. NHK, TBS, Fuji TV, and TV -

emergency, consciousness of the need to share information even through personal contact means becomes crucial. for sharing safety status information, entering information about people who were

Because of the extensive damage from the disaster, it became necessary to mutual cooperation between existing forms of mass media and social media was born. From the very day of the disaster, TV stations NHK, Fuji TV, and TBS simultaneously broadcast special programs focused on the disaster on TV and on the Internet, using live video streaming services such as Ustream and Nico Nico area restrictions from Radiko, a service that allows users to listen to the radio via Internet. the Internet would be for the disaster areas. When I interviewed people in disaster areas, however, I found that simultaneous broadcasting was literally a lifeline in some areas. There were, in fact, areas where it was impossible to watch TV but electricity and the Internet were still available, and simultaneous broadcasting proved helpful. cable TV station, K-Net Kesennuma Cable Network, was completely destroyed, and having lost the lifeline network, was unable to broadcast to its subscribers. In

of such video material was extremely important, since videos from the shelters were a valuable source of safety status information, particularly during the period when telephone networks and the Internet were still not restored. The one disappointment was that those broadcasters only started making shelter video material available one to two weeks after the disaster. These kinds of services are particufor people to reach each other. Expectations are high that this disaster will become a turning point for such video services to be introduced more swiftly in the future.

In terms of cooperation between mass media and social media, the fact that the mass media began to use Twitter actively after the disaster is also a point of inin charge of the accounts are increasingly offering information that they personally deem valuable or interesting, and such information is being spread widely through

the mass media. In addition to releasing breaking news, the department posted a ers as much as possible, and guided users to the blog in case a long explanation was required. It pointed the way toward one of the ideal usages of Twitter by the mass media.

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by the Nomura Research Institute on March 19 and 201. People who answered the question, “what media or source of information do you consider important for -

it also seems to be set to outclass the others in terms of usage of social media.

There could, indeed, be the danger of press conferences being used as propaganda if they were exclusively shown on the Internet with the comments function turned off, and with no TV or newspaper press allowed in. However, in practice the media and freelance journalists are freely allowed into most press conferences, apart from a few exceptions. Therefore, webcasting in fact increases the diversity of information and provides the public with additional access to inforrelies on the Press Club still continues to surface from time to time.

In terms of primary information being disseminated through social media,

Social media as sources of primary information The fact that the mass media are going beyond their ordinary methods to induced by the disaster, but cases of the social media acting as valuable sources of primary information are also increasing.

One representative example is the webcasting of press conferences of the government, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety quake, important press conferences were also broadcast by TV stations, but these were rarely covered from beginning to end, and most programs did not show the question-and-answer sessions, preferring to have a commentator explicate the conference at the studio. In many cases, however, important information was included in the question-and-answer sessions, causing new facts revealed at press conferences to be released by the mass media with a time lag of up to a few hours. press conferences were broadcast from beginning to end, the conferences themselves began to constitute an important source of primary information, allowing newly revealed facts to be distributed on social media such as Twitter faster than on the mass media.

The live output of these webcasts was archived when appropriate, allowing conferences in real time. There is a strong tendency among people working in the mass media to criticize those webcasts of entire press conferences as being the same as uncritically accepting the propaganda of those in power, proclaiming that

power, nuclear power plants, earthquake, disaster psychology, radiology, sociology, economics, agriculture, and crisis management, began to comment on news, and to proactively spread information on Twitter in response to the disaster. TV and newspaper coverage employs the method of asking one or two specialists for comments when an event happens in order to give it credence, but social media in effect allow hundreds of diverse specialists to comment from different viewpoints.

able to obtain valuable information that they would not have been able to receive by merely swallowing the information made available by the mass media, but the abundant diversity and amount of information also caused confusion for many.

It could be argued that in the midst of the explosion of information and the resulting incertitude regarding which information to trust, the need has increased that has been examined to some extent through, for example, retweets. I myself, spread it on the Internet.

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misunderstanding.

To begin with, skeptical comments and social streams (Twitter) are displayed or decreased after the recent disaster. For “information released by individuals on webcasts. This structure allows viewers to watch the press conference while also verifying what other viewers are thinking while watching it. This means that viewers need never uncritically accept the statements made at the press conference.

summary of this investigation mentions that “while many respondents realized the

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convenience of social media, there is a high possibility that chances of encountertion were indeed circulated, but it is undeniable that social media played a role as the source of primary information that was not possible to obtain from the mass media, or as a source of information that supplemented the mass media.

must have been extremely strained due to the life at the shelter with no end in sight,

I heard similar stories from other volunteers involved in the management of evacuation shelters. They all said that “being able to give the same thing to each two major premises when bringing supplies to shelters.

“The biggest problems when we accept meal-runs or deliveries of packed lunches from the outside, happen in those cases where there is not enough for everyone in

media, but this was accompanied by the frustration of not knowing how useful such work would be for the disaster areas, which might not even have access to the Internet. them would cause inequality. This kind of thing happens in all shelters and outsid-

and Soma among other places, and hearing the stories of locals, was the obvious fact that “the information conveyed by the mass media only captures a tiny communicate information for the largest possible viewership and readership within a limited space and time, and it would be erroneous to label the mass media as simply bad.

I have since then visited the disaster area on numerous occasions. I recognized the importance of disseminating detailed information in real time, which the mass media are not as nimble as social media in communicating, and this knowledge has served as a strong motivation to repeat my visits to the disaster areas.

What I realized in talking directly to involved parties––including local people, the public administration, volunteers, and people who brought supplies––is not only that there are countless detailed problems but also that there are types of prob-

major bottleneck.

I interviewed a volunteer who went to the disaster area with supplies right after the earthquake struck.

underwear for women, so I scraped up all sorts of clothes I could collect and went to the shelters. But then the problems began when I started distributing the clothes.

The people in the shelters began to quarrel because the clothes were not the same.

In order to avoid inequalities, they made sure to ascertain the number of meals that could be provided, and asked to make adjustments if needed when someone dropped in with some meals or volunteers turned up for meal-runs without prior notice. one a meal even though the correct number of meals were prepared. This is simof volunteers has dropped sharply after three months from the disaster, and the frequency of meal-runs is also decreasing accordingly. For that reason, meals at evacuation shelters now tend to involve plain food such as rice balls, and extravaOf course, neither being directly involved in the situation nor living in the evacuation shelters, we should not criticize such acts. What is important is to recognize that meal-runs and distribution of supplies at evacuation shelters often entail such problems. It is therefore necessary to carry out meal-runs and to provide supplies only after ascertaining the number of people living at the shelter so to be able to to unforeseen shortages.

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Personally, what left the strongest impression on me when I interviewed volthe shelters.

Typically, evacuation shelters are intended for temporary evacuation, and people with relatives and family who can accommodate them, or those who received permission to move to temporary housing, are the ones to leave the shelcommodate them. In other words, those with greater social capital tend to be the

of time at the shelters, creating the danger of small inequalities eventually develIn the “Thinking about society and culture based on the behavior of young 2 , organized by the Japan Foundation on May 26, sociologist Shinji Miyadai pointed out that “since people can only rely on their own social capital in environments where the public administration has ceased to function normally, it is important to prepare for autonomous self-governing in micro-communities that are born in evacuation shelters on the basis of each per-

outside, obviously enhancing the amenities provided for the evacuees. The difference in the ability to make use of social capital and of the good-will from the outside is creating a large gap among evacuation shelters. mass media? Because the mass media refuse to undermine the premise that “the shelters are at best weekly magazines; newspapers and TV rarely provide extensive coverage. Needless to say, some people may feel that making the actual situation at evacuation shelters public through articles in the media is tantamount social capital is only possible by taking a matter-of-fact approach in making individual problems public and together seeking a way to improve them. It is vitally important to reveal where bottlenecks are occurring and for evacuees living in the shelters, the public administration, and people from the outside to share an awareness of the problems. What is necessary to make this possible is a departure from human rights of evacuees are involved, the mass media, which still hold a strong up the reconstruction process in a concrete manner.

Local governments becoming dysfunctional

cases abound where individual evacuation shelters fail to make good use of the of evacuation shelters and of the public administration are not matched with the external social capital of those who want to give support. and individuals applying for permission to the public administration, hoping to provide support in order to improve the various amenities for life in shelters, but being appointed as the leader of a shelter. In some shelters, it is said that such leaders obstinately reject help from the outside. There are various reasons behind the rejections, but they can be summarized in terms of the danger of “a change in the sional was appointed as the leader, and after a certain point in the prolonged life at the shelter, he began to treat the others in the shelter as if they were patients. emerged, and precisely this sense of responsibility constituted a barrier to the uting to positive results, such as in some evacuation shelters in Miyagi. In such

What I began to understand through my trips to Tohoku is that the public administration is clearly becoming dysfunctional. This is obviously not due to city hall employees neglecting their jobs. Talking to any of them would instantly make it clear that most are working diligently and tirelessly. But an inordinate number of tasks continues to pile up, outstripping the ability to process them. In the aforementioned symposium, Shinji Miyadai pointed out that such dysfunctionality of

“For example, most of the donations are still not distributed, and there were apparcause troubles if there was not enough for everyone. In relation to this problem, criticism tends to be directed to the public administration, but the public administration is a system which functions under the premise of daily life at ordinary times, so it is only natural in any country that entities in society, such as communities and religious groups, should take a marginal responsibility. This is no time for criticizing the public administration, but we do just that. This reveals one weakness of this society. To put

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In the Tohoku region, the speed of reconstruction and levels of frustration among victims are largely different from one locality to another due to differences in the political power of the disaster-hit local government and local chief executive. In general, the speed of reconstruction is slowest and the level of frustration highest in the cities and towns that grew larger in the “great merger of the Heisei chi city, Odaka town, and Kashima town, is a typical example.

What makes Minamisoma atypical is the fact that it straddles different loca-

stances of Minamisoma. This is because major newspapers and TV stations based in Tokyo set their own standards for coverage after the hydrogen explosion at unit 1 of the plant, prohibiting activities in areas located within 40 to 60 kilometers from the plant. meters from the plant are safe, but having analyzed information we have obtained from non-governmental sources, we deem the information from the government unreliable and we will therefore set a wider no-entry zone and refrain from cover-

within 20 kilometers from it, ex-Haramachi located within the 20 to 30-kilometer indoor evacuation zone (restrictions currently lifted as of July 1), and ex-Kashima located outside the 30-kilometer zone. Moreover, it also includes the coastal area that was badly damaged by the tsunami, and the mountainous area with high radiation levels induced by hotspots created by the direction of the wind (the socalled planned evacuation zone, which was designated at a later date), creating the need to address those issues separately. In other words, the nuclear accident

which residents within those areas could base their decisions. However, the media did not make such internal regulation public, and they continued coverage with a double standard, leaving Minamisoma abandoned as a result.

There is a Press Club for the mass media in the city hall in Soma, and journal-

different responses from the public administration: 1) the area within 20 kilometers from the plant where all residents must be evacuated (ex-Odaka); 2) the area within the 20 to 30-kilometer zone where residents are asked to take shelter indoors, while having to continue the recovery efforts related to the damage from the tsunami (coastal area in ex-Haramachi); 3) the area within the 20 to 30-kilometer zone where residents are asked to take shelter indoors, and must prepare for an eventual planned evacuation which may be ordered by the government at any time (inland area in ex-Haramachi); 4) the area outside the 30-kilometers zone, to be used for housing shelters and schools for evacuees, and recovery efforts related to damage from the tsunami must be carried out at the same time (ex-Kashima); and 5) the area outside the 30-kilometer zone to be used for housing shelters and schools for evacuees, which must keep an eye on the radiation level (also ex-Kashima).

Moreover, the distribution of goods completely halted in the light of the posdent, residents of Minamisoma were cut off from the distribution of goods such as delivery services, postal services, and newspaper deliveries, and were forced to travel north to Soma by car in order to use such basic infrastructure and services.

In such severe conditions, what the public administration can do becomes limited.

It is inevitable to an extent that the frustration of residents should be directed to the public administration, but the media should have been able to alleviate some of the dissatisfaction by correctly covering the severe situation that residents were facing.

However, most mass media outlets did not convey the distressing circum-

after the accident.

Press Club. Journalists working for local newspapers returned after a while, but

-

I was given this rather too candid opinion by a member of a TV reporting staff.

I do not claim that all mass media personnel do their coverage with such thoughts in mind, but there is no doubt that some of them do. Minamisoma continued to be ignored to suit the convenience of the media.

In exasperation at the situation, the mayor of Minamisoma, Katsunobu Sakurai, attracted attention by pleading for help to the entire world through YouTube. by the Times, but he would never have been selected had the mass media served their original purpose from an early stage. The adverse effects of the disjuncture between the mass media and the public administration cannot be overestimated.

This will become an increasingly important point when thinking about reconstruction.

This article does not intend to focus on criticizing the old-fashioned mass media, so let us get back to the original subject.

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“On the day of the earthquake, I rushed offshore by boat to escape the tsunami.

great merger of the Heisei period are becoming dysfunctional. In such a situation, some local communities, in other words units smaller in area than the administrative districts of the city, are beginning to take action by drawing up concrete reconstruction plans. This is happening in the ex-Isatomae district in ex-Utatsu town, now Minamisanriku town, Miyagi prefecture, and the Toyoma district in Iwaki city, Fukushima prefecture.

In the Isatomae district, residents owning forests in the mountains have made more than 100,000 square meters of land available to the local community, pushing forward a plan to redevelop the upland area into a residential district so that an entire settlement could move there. This plan was drawn up not by the public administration, but by the Isatomae Keiyakukai, literally the Isatomae contractual

in the Heian period to denote associations and groups of people with the same applied also to diverse mutual-assistance groups. The Keiyakuko of Isatomae is also positioned as a mutual-assistance group. (There are other local communities named after local shrines created after the Isatomae Keiyakuko, attesting to the closeness between community and faith.) ued to exist as a closed and intimate community of the descendants of those famiseven. It has been contributing to the local community by managing the mountains left by the previous generations, arranging local celebrations, rebuilding shore protection by lumbering wood from the mountains when a disaster destroyed the banks, and in other ways.

The Isatomae district suffered particularly extensive damages from the tsunami, and no fewer than 74 families out of the 77 households in the association had their houses swept away by the waves; the dead and missing among the families related to the association amount to thirteen people. There were 410 households in this area, including those that were not part of the association, and 270 of them sustained damage from the tsunami. Faced with the unprecedented crisis, the association took the major decision of “relocating to higher ground with all the

240 know what the situation is like. Think about a plan that will make it possible for some land owned by the association to create a new town, even before the disaster. association, Mr. Makino, and others, to build a new town so that we can provide a

The plan was pushed forward at an astonishing speed after the basic policy was decided. Through a contact of Hayao Makino, the ex-mayor of Utatsu town,

“Encouraged by Mr. Makino, we held an emergency general assembly for the association on March 23, told members about the plan, and asked if they were willing to ately went to see Kenji Endo, the vice-mayor of Shizukawa. When Yoshihiro Murai, the governor of Miyagi prefecture, came to see us on the 27th, he already knew of

Creating a blueprint for the reconstruction of an area and enlisting the cooperation of landowners and residents without relying on the public administration––the Isatomae district managed to reach this point only two months after the earthquake, but whether they can proceed with their plan still remains uncertain.

for a suitable place on higher ground, they will then look into who the landowners are, take some time. We at the association took care of all that time-consuming stuff, so

get going right away. If we can start working on this plan, the people in the temporary

original idea for this reconstruction plan was born as early as the day after the disaster.

ing forward an original reconstruction plan that involves the relocation of the entire cent of the six hundred households suffered partial or complete damage from the tsunami. Only about 10 percent of the residents are currently able to live in their own homes.

This area had a shoaling beach and had almost never experienced damage caused by a tsunami. The recent tsunami, however, reached twelve to thirteen meters in height, resulting in catastrophic damage. The essence of the reconstruction plan in Toyoma is to learn from the tsunami, and to move the residential area to elevated ground located at more than twenty meters above sea level. like the ko in the Isatomae district, this plan was born from a community closer to the level of a local government but still smaller than the city government. by a university professor living in Maehashi, who had come to the district as a volunteer. “He pointed at a map and told me that we could make a residential area on higher ground if we cut into the mountains at this and that point. We never want something

In pushing the reconstruction plan forward, Suzuki insisted on the importance of speed in actualizing the reconstruction plan, just like the chairman of the Isatomae Keiyakukai, Masami Chiba.

for this to happen. Maybe even ten years if problems get entangled. However, the reconstruction of this district will become more and more remote as this process people living in evacuation shelters and temporary housing, and to show them that things are moving forward. In fact, more people began to come and see me on their own accord to ask about the plan after I went around shelters to explain it. Every-

Mayor Suzuki says that he is in talks with the administration of Iwaki city and Fukushima prefecture, but is more focused in negotiating with the state directly, trying to avoid building excessive expectations regarding the former. “The prefectural administration of Fukushima was originally centered in the Nakadori region, comprising Fukushima city and Koriyama city. In fact, most of the former

again. So I thought that this was a good plan, and I went around the shelters to explain to the residents that I was thinking of adopting this plan to reconstruct the it, Governor Yuhei Sato of Fukushima is preoccupied with responses to the nuclear

sented the plan at a reconstruction meeting held with the Iwaki city government.

In the case of Toyoma district, the land to be used belongs to local landowners and there is no community based on kos such as the Isatomae Keiyakukai. The reconstruction plan for Toyoma is therefore based on the premise of the state purchasing the land through special legislation. “The reason I want to do this through special legislation is because I heard about what happened in the Great Hanshin Earthquake. The reconstruction after the Great Hanshin Earthquake was carried out at a very high rate, but there was a lot of dissatisfaction among local people because it was pushed forward by the public administration without listening to what the local people had to say. On top of that, the landowners held on to their rights tightly, so things like reconstructing roads in a

trict and revive the local industry. To make that possible, I need to let as many people

The Isatomae and Toyoma districts have different methodologies and are led by different kinds of local communities, but they are aiming for almost the same goal. Is it realistic for their autonomous and concrete reconstruction plans, supported by the understanding of the local residents, to be incorporated into the Unfortunately, in the current state of things, the prospects are uncertain, at least for the Isatomae district. This is because the Nomura Research Institute has agreed to give full support to begin a reconstruction plan for Miyagi prefecture, formulating the plan, only two people living in the prefecture were included among

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the twelve committee members for the reconstruction conference. This is in strong contrast to Iwate prefecture, where all nineteen members of the Tsunami Recon-

scheme for the reconstruction plan, Governor Murai has put forward the “spe-

nuclear stance while reconstruction plans like the one in Miyagi hold sway and the end of the nuclear issue is not yet on the horizon.

Personally, my feeling that there is no point in expecting much from the public administration grows stronger every time I visit a disaster area. I also began to think that the happiest arrangement for both the state that wants to abandon the its own accord led by their own communities, is to expect little from the public administration, create a system through which local communities can collect dona-

with the Nomura Research Institute to push forward reconstruction, disregarding the wishes of the residents.

What about Toyoma district? Fukushima prefecture is faced with its own probthe outlook for reconstruction tends to focus on how to respond to the nuclear issue, with, for example, the conversion to natural energy being given center stage. cussions about special economic zones and town development until the nuclear issue comes under control.

For both Isatomae district and Toyoma district, the plans to move to high ground after securing the consent of residents seem to be realistic and feasible, as well as highly effective in eliminating unnecessary procedures for the public

reconstructing towns that have been washed away by the tsunami. It is unbearable to see their efforts at consolidating a plan that was produced on their own accord and coordinated with other residents by running around since the tsunami hit being crushed by the dysfunctionality of the enormous administrative body that

“The Tohoku region may have suffered immense damage, but it only accounted for

carry out their reconstruction plans.

Giving considerable discretion to local leaders who are pushing forward their own reconstruction plans, such as those in Isatomae and Toyoma, and making arrangements with the public administration in ways that they deem desirable: if politicians were to commit to this issue, that is the only role they should assume.

Rather than snatching the supplies brought by volunteers to carry out legal pork

scribe the kind of networks such as the ko that present strong local characteristics.

In actual fact, even in the Toyoma district that has no kos, most of the people communities, based on strong ties, are naturally exclusive and have been causing friction between new and old residents.)

Chiba, chairman of the Isatomae Keiyakukai, mentioned that he feels the association will begin to take a new shape triggered by the disaster. “When this happened, I felt that perhaps our ancestors were telling us to use the assets they had accumulated. That we should use the resources to move to a different place with everyone else, and start all over again. If this was an idle town that was

concentrated in the coastal area with many marginal villages, the damage accounts -

This is a comment made by a bureaucrat. of view. Putting aside the question of whether this is right or wrong, precisely because there are numerous bureaucrats who are judging the situation impassively, Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry Banri Kaieda is able to retain his pro-

and was only open to their descendants, there are developments such as freely sharing the valuable assets that have been accumulated in over three hundred years.

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istration endures, the role that the local community needs to assume becomes inevitably bigger. However, in order for the local community to be reconstructed and become autonomous, there need to be funds, political power, and more than anything else, information. The aim is to secure a tight group with the minimum number of people required, solidifying the ties within it, and at the same time opening its doors to the external world to introduce a new vitality and to utilize wisdom that was previously unavailable. I do not want to praise social media excessively, but to make the above possible, I can only think of combining the local community with social media.

1. “東北地方太平洋沖地震に伴うメディア動向に関する調査 http://www.nri.co.jp/news/2011/110329.html.

2. “3.11後の若者の行動から社会・文化を考える

wonderful in that they provided a way for people who would not have come into contact otherwise to create ties among them. But they do have their vulnerabilities Having followed social media closely for the past few years, I can fully unnot just within the limited ambit of connecting individuals to individuals but also as a platform for connecting communities with other communities, and was also equipped with a function to send money with ease? What if there arose a phenomenon where strong ties between local communities began to supplement social When I told chairman Chiba about the reconstruction plan in Toyoma, he was very keen to know about how other areas are trying to push forward their reconstruction plans. It would be quite possible to connect local communities with similar reconstruction plans such as Isatomae and Toyoma through social media, and to put pressure on the public administration and politicians by giving detailed updates about the developments related to the plans.

Making public the process through which things are decided increases transparency and arouses interest over social media, acting as a strong force for redetance of opening the existing assets and resources of local communities, and to and a wide-scale sharing of information through social media, I believe, is the only

(b. 1973) Journalist and lecturer at the Graduate School of Waseda University.

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Going Beyond the Severed Time: Thinking as the Kacho

Abstract

Disasters and Society

T

he Great East Japan Earthquake and the subsequent nuclear accident have

warns that “Japan has become a country that is unable to invoke the memories a thousand years old are etched everywhere in early Japanese literature, people have lost interest in them. Postwar Japanese society disregarded the history that was inherited throughout the ages up until the Second World War, and solely pushed for economic growth under the reign of the United States. Memories of Japan as an island archipelago were lost, and independent judgments based on an authentic view of history and the measurement of risk were largely avoided.

pp. 074-093

hidden risks are beginning to emerge to the fore in the wake of the earthquake.

Inose proposes that in order for Tokyo residents to accept the nuclear accident as their own problem, a nuclear power plant should be built in Tokyo Bay, taking into account the lessons learnt from the Fukushima incident, so to show the world that nize the true risks and costs of procuring electricity when building a nuclear plant inciting an earnest debate on the pros and cons. Only through such a discussion the global community.

take decisions, in other words a

(a head of a family)?

pop culture, they are in fact underpinned by traditional Japanese styles of beauty including paintings, pottery, and ikebana. Murakami states, “behind every great work of art, there is always war. Such a desperate aspect of human nature is fun-

of a crisis.

By delegating military affairs to the United States, relegating energy needs to nuclear power plants in Fukushima, and letting these facts slip from their memories, residents of Tokyo were able to carry on with their tranquil lives. However, the

(b. 1946) Writer and Vice-Governor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. He is the author of Defeated in War in the Summer of 1941 (1983), The Mikado’s Portrait (1986), and The Mythology behind Tokyo’s Land (1988). (b. 1962) Artist and president of Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. His world-touring major retrospective ©MURAKAMI and his exhibition at the Palace of Versailles have attracted worldwide attention. He is the author of Geijutsu Tosoron [Art: A Struggle] (2010).

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Osaka Symposium: Abstract

The Era of Disasters and the Words of Critical Thought Disasters and Society

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his symposium held in Osaka that still harbors memories from the Great Hanshin Earthquake focused on the issue of what kind of role thought and theory can assume after the Great East Japan Earthquake, which caused unprecedented damage. The panelists talked about their own experiences of the disaster and related them to the question of theory after the disaster.

pp. 094-109

form theory would be possible in Japan after the earthquake. The earthquake is an event that goes beyond rationality. Faced with such an event, an intellectual cul-

-

as something that bears the possibility of overcoming such an expired form of inters. This is precisely the question for which theory should assume responsibility.

The discussion of the four panelists shows that the challenge of theory in Ja-

marked the limits of this postwar society that acted as the basis for theory and

image to open it up to the external world, after the bland conditions of postwar Japan have come to an end.

the Great East Japan Earthquake struck while architecture was being questioned anew in response to the Great Hanshin Earthquake, architecture became inextricably bound to disasters.

How can theory face these inescapable disasters? Ryota Fukushima, who reconstruct a different image for its national land. In postwar Japanese society, Japan has been described as being united, both physically and spiritually. However, according to Fukushima, it is necessary to reconsider the country as a dispersed Throughout the symposium, Kensuke Suzuki repeatedly questioned in what

(b. 1976) Associate professor specializing in theoretical sociology in the School of Sociology at Kwansei Gakuin University. (b. 1981) Literary critic and scholar of Chinese literature. (b. 1972) Interior designer and architect. He is the creative director of Contectures LLC. 245

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Sendai Symposium: Abstract

The Words People Sought in the Disaster Disasters and Society

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his symposium was held on May 21, 2011, at the Sendai Mediatheque in Sendai, Miyagi prefecture, which still showed the scars of the disaster. The panelists were Hideaki Sena, a writer living in Sendai; Noriko Ishigaki, a radio announcer for FM Sendai; sociologist Kensuke Suzuki, who also participated in the -

pp. 110-127

hope after coming through the desperation that the entire country of Japan will not return to what it was before the earthquake, we should seek the possibility of solidarity with the entire world. For example, making a record of the voices of people in regard to the disaster, and passing them on in languages other than Japanese, could be one way to achieve this. However, each person undeniably requires a

at FM Sendai during and after the earthquake was delivered to the audience with a while to gather information related to the damage that should have been reported, that were provided by the listeners. On the other hand, Sena pointed out that while information was scarce in the disaster areas, in the remaining parts of Japan with solid information infrastructure, the rapid diffusion of the information conveying the conditions of the catastrophic damage resulted in widespread “compassion

with a completely different situation from the one next to it, and that each of those theory can assume? Faced with this question, Suzuki proposed that rather than attempting to statistically extract a generic hope, we should listen to each individual expression of loss that would otherwise be lost, and to create an online archive

(b. 1968) Writer and professor of mechanical systems at Toho University from 2006 to 2009. He is the author of Parasite Eve (2005). He lives and works in Sendai. (b. 1974) Announcer and producer at Date fm based in Sendai.

Post-Disaster Reconstruction, Gov 2.0 and the Platformizing World

Abstract

Disasters and Politics

pp. 130-146

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quake is faced with severe challenges toward achieving reconstruction, includ-

Businesses around the world are being freed from age-old vertical integration, beginning to adopt a structure where horizontally specialized platforms, such for different layers within businesses. On one hand, this creates the risk of large overseas, but on the other hand, it opens up the opportunity for small and medium sized enterprises to distribute modularized products globally, as with smartphone applications. formization of the government along the trends described above. Just like with scheme in which the government provides the groundwork for small and middlesized enterprises as well as individuals to participate. This kind of structure is from a module reliant on Facebook into a platform. reconstruction of an extremely wide disaster area, which presents diverse conditions of damage according to the region. The government should convert its own

(b. 1961) Freelance journalist. He has worked as an editor for the Mainichi Shimbun and is a regular contributor for CNET Japan.

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Abstract

The Day the “Endless Everyday” Ended Disasters and Culture

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he Great East Japan Earthquake and the nuclear core meltdown accident

gravely affected everyone in Japan. This not only takes the forms of fear of radioactive contamination or concern for the damage that the national economy will suffer. The nuclear accident caused the latent division of public opinion regarding nuclear power plants to come to the surface, giving rise to a situation where the public, divided into those who support nuclear power and those who are against it, hurl abuse at each other.

pp. 148-159

large part of their disposable income in their hobbies.

What kinds of ways of life should the Japanese people adopt now, having enjoyed peace and prosperity after the war? Should we not take the next step, forever, has actually come to an end?

have consistently been repeating announcements that underestimate the situaPromoting the use of nuclear power for more than half a century, the government, bureaucrats, and businesses joined forces in Japan to carry out relentless and activists who warned about the dangers by labeling them as “people with dansuccessful. I can only think that there are supporters of nuclear plants who hold secret anxieties against nuclear power, but who are unable to voice them because

as consumers. Critics and scholars of the otaku generation, such as Kaichiro predict economic contraction and to point out that otakus will be forced to change their way of life.

Otakus are children of the postwar rapid economic growth, and without an

(b. 1960) Editor and professor at Kyoto Seika University. He is the co-author of Even a Donkey Can Draw Manga.

Abstract

What Kind of Future Do We Choose?

Disasters and Science

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n the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, a massive earthquake and tsunami that exceeded all previous expectations hit the eastern coast of Japan,

pp. 162- 178

future courses of action. This is a revolutionary concept that pertains not only to science communication. It is about visualizing the process of social decision making.

while repeatedly correcting the information it was making available, giving the im-

been responsible for outreach activities for science, also lost social credibility, as it failed to provide as much information as it was expected to at the time the earthquake struck and the nuclear incident unfolded.

Behind such a discrepancy between expectation and reality there lies the fact that the public was largely unaware of the fact that science has diverse limitations, why such limitations arise. The root of the problem lies in the inability of science communication to go beyond the mere raising of awareness, disregarding a serious consideration of what it really means to communicate in order to collaborate statements that it would itself be responsible for can be understood as sharing the same underlying cause.

To repair the relationship between citizens and science, and to tackle issues for which science cannot provide solutions on its own, it is important to visualize the differences in opinion by utilizing the voices from the public that have been accumulated in the new public spaces such as social networks, and by allowing diverse research bodies, such as universities and public research organizations, to make their positions public in a pluralistic manner. Only then will it be possible for the public and scientists to have a direct discussion about the risks related to

(b. 1976) Project Assistant Professor in the School of Medicine at Keio University. He specializes in science and technology studies and stem cell biology.

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Interview with Keiichi Nakagawa, Abstract

Department of Radiology, The University of Tokyo Hospital Disasters and Science

K

pp. 180-183

the University of Tokyo Hospital, actively spread his specialized knowledge

excessively feared in the wake of the nuclear accident. In this interview held on sibility and mission to provide reassurance.

Nakagawa emphasizes that many things other than radioactivity entail the risk of cancer and that radioactivity that is not from the nuclear accident is ordinarily found around us. He proclaims that the reason fear is focused on radioactivity and he voices concern that such a belief would prevent people from enjoying the richness of life.

In terms of what he expects from the administrative authorities, he mentions measures that take into consideration the individual differences of evacuees from areas near the nuclear accident, especially in terms of psychological care, education about radioactivity and cancer, and decontamination by removing surface soil.

(b. 1960) Associate professor in the Department of Radiology at The University of Tokyo Hospital. He is a committee member of the Anti-cancer Measures Promotion Council hosted by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

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Abstract

Thinking from Fukushima about the Power of Words Disasters and Words 2

pp. 186-193

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his conversation was held between poet Ryoichi Wago, who lives and works

Japan. Wago started the dialogue by speaking of his sensation that a new avenue

that the words of poetry should move away from exclusively reaching out to readers of contemporary poetry to start seeking to create a more direct connection among people. giving room for numbers, such as those related to economic losses and radiation this, Wago suggested that we should think about words through reliving the disaster like the victims, as if throwing ourselves and drowning in a river rather than watching from a bridge. Reading the conversations on Twitter, where his poetry related to the disaster was initially performed, he witnessed a deep communication entailing just such a reality. situation over the Internet, where only positive words that call for reconstruction are sought after. He proposes that what we instead need to assume is an attitude of accepting the loss as it is, in other words, to share a time of mourning. Wago pointed out that the Japanese language has not cultivated words to speak of loss, and has been responding to devastating grief with silence. But Japanese people share the kind of overwhelming loss that forces us to become silent and to accept only begin from there.

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Disaster/Speech Index:

The Disaster/Speech Research Team

Abstract

The Disaster and People’s Voices Disasters and Words 2

pp. 194-209

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course and speech in Japan caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, and how intellectuals responded to the sudden events that

of changes in the words circulated in Japan reacting to the disaster, using statistical data obtained by inspecting Google Trend and Twitter. The second part will present what kind of words were disseminated after the disaster, focusing on thira few short texts have also been prepared to illustrate interesting phenomena and activities responding to the disaster, such as the large number of videos capturing the oncoming tsunami uploaded on video-sharing websites. (http://genron.contectures.jp/), the portal website for Japanese critical discourse run by Contectures. This should be of interest to anyone who may be interested in what kind of words Japan wove after being crippled by a disaster. on the Internet by the team (http://saigaigenron.contectures.jp/). It is a website for collecting and analyzing words related to the disaster that were circulated on the Internet, for which editorial control was also given to members of the Supporters of Contectures, the organization hosted by Contectures. The contents of this website were enriched through the cooperation of countless members, and the results are able in Japanese.

The Disaster/Speech Research Team is composed of The team has been supervised by .

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