Japan's triple disaster

The authors of this volume discuss questions of disaster and justice from various interdisciplinary vantage points, including public policy, science and technology studies, law, gender, sociology and psychology, social and cultural anthropology, town planning and tourism.

The term "natural" disasters is a misnomer; cataclysmic natural events that impact humans can often be anticipated and their consequences should be prevented – the failure to do so is a failure of politics, policy and risk planning. Presenting research on more than a decade after the Great East Japan Earthquake, the chapters highlight not only the manifold challenges in the direct disaster response and policymaking but also the difficulties of "just" long- term recovery. Arguing for just distribution, recognition and participation, this volume provides a diversity of perspectives on these issues as experienced after the 2011 disasters through detailed and nuanced analyses presented by early career researchers and senior academics coming from various countries and continents of the world. The insights of this volume galvanise the discussion of disaster governance and highlight the variety of disaster (in)justices and the ways disasters force people to contest and reimagine their relationships with their countries, neighborhoods, families, and friends.

A valuable read for scholars and students researching issues related to mass emergencies, justice theory and civil activism.

Natalia Novikova is a Language Instructor at Tamagawa University, Japan. She received her Ph.D. in International and Advanced Japanese Studies at the University of Tsukuba, Japan, exploring the nature of citizen activism in the aftermath of the 3.11 disasters.

Julia Gerster is an Assistant Professor at the Disaster Culture and Digital Archive Division at the International Research Institute of Disaster Science at Tohoku University, Japan. She received a Ph.D. in Japanese studies at Freie Universität Berlin working on the role of local culture in community recovery after the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Manuela G. Hartwig is currently a research associate at the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Tsukuba, Japan. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Tsukuba in Advanced Social Japanese Studies in 2020 focusing on the role of "science advisers" in Japan’s energy and climate change policymaking network.