단행본: 유독한 열도 (2010)

Editors’ Note: This is a Korean translation of a Teach 3.11 annotation. We invite volunteers to translate and/or contribute content in Korean, Japanese, and Chinese languages. Thank you. (한국어, 일본어, 중국어로 기존의 내용을 번역하거나 새로운 내용을 기고할 자원활동가를 찾고 있습니다.)

Walker, Brett. 2010. Toxic Archipelago: A History of Industrial Disease in Japan. University of Washington Press.

브렛 워커. 2010. <유독한 열도: 일본 산업병의 역사>. 워싱턴 대학 출판부.

이 책은 국가와 고통과 산업공해 사이의 다면적인 관계를 혁신적이고 이해하기 쉬운 이야기로 담아내고 있다. 브렛 워커(Brett Walker)는 일본 역사에서 잘 알려져 있는 메이지 시대 아시오 구리광산 오염사건과 전후에 일어난 미나마타병과 이타이 이타이 (“아프다 아프다”)병의 발병과 같은 사건에 대한 새로운 해석을 제공한다. 그의 핵심 개념인 “혼합 인과관계(hybrid causation)”는 “인간의 정치, 경제, 기술, 그리고 문화가 환경 오염과 산업 질병에 끼치는 영향”의 복잡성을 드러내기 위하여, “자연적”인 요소와 “사회적” 혹은 “인간적” 요소들이 원인을 제공하는 과정들의 구분을 약화시킨다(xiv쪽). 이와 같이 학자들이 따로 연구했을 법한 이슈들을 의도적으로 조합하여, 저자의 이야기는 대단히 광범위하게 확장된다. 이에 준비되지 않은 독자들은 처음에 갈피를 못 잡을 수도 있으나, 다양한 사례들을 포함하고 있는 워커의 접근법은 학생들이 산업 공해에 대하여 맥락화된 역사적 이해를 하고자 할 때 이용할 수 있는 다양한 분석 각도를 배울 수 있도록 도움으로써 교육적인 가치를 지닌다.

워커가 관찰한 미국과 일본의 환경철학의 전통의 차이는 매우 흥미롭다. 그에 의하면, 이 차이점이 1967년 통과된 일본의 공해대책기본법의 문구에 영향을 끼쳤다. 그는 일본의 법은 “대자연”(wilderness)이 아니라 “생활 환경”(生活 環境, seikatsu kankyō)을 대상으로 하고 있음을 지적하였다. 전자는 “인간이 없는 곳을 상징한다”면 후자는 “인간 거주와 가장 밀접하게 연관되어 있는 경관과 생물체들로 구성되어 있다”(217쪽). 비록 저자가 “혼합 인과관계”와 명백한 연결을 짓고 있지는 않지만, 일본의 개념은 이 책에 소개되어 있는 역사적 사건들로부터 받은 교훈들을 부분적으로 학습한 것이라고 주장한다. 아마 가장 논란의 여지가 많은 – 그렇기 때문에 학생들의 토론을 불러일으키는 데 유용한 – 점은 저자가 가지고 있는 미래의 환경 문제에 대한 다소 우울한 관점이다. 그는 이렇게 적고 있다: “나는 하나의 종(species)으로서 우리가 이와 같은 문제들을 당장 해결할 수 있을 것이라고 생각하지 않는다. 아마 전혀 해결할 수 없을지도 모른다”(223쪽).

2010년에 출간된 이 책에는 당연히 2011년에 일어난 재난에 대한 언급은 없지만, “혼합 인과관계”가 주는 함의는 분명히 산업 공해의 범주를 벗어나서 핵 사고와 소위 “자연” 재해라고 불리는 것의 영역에까지 확장된다. 특히 대학의 학부 수업의 읽기 자료로 강하게 권장한다.

- Yoshiyuki Kikuchi. Translation by YeonSil Kang

BOOK: Toxic Archipelago (2010)

Walker, Brett. 2010. Toxic Archipelago: A History of Industrial Disease in Japan. University of Washington Press.

This is an innovative and accessible narrative of multi-faceted relationships between a nation, pain, and industrial pollution. Walker offers fresh analyses of well-known cases in Japanese history, such as the Meiji period’s Ashio copper mine and the more recent Minamata and Itai-itai (“it hurts, it hurts”) diseases in the postwar period. His key concept, hybrid causation, undercuts the distinction between “natural” and “social” or “human” causative processes in order to complicate “the role that human politics, economics, technology, and culture played in environmental pollution and industrial disease” (p. xiv). This deliberate combination of issues that scholars otherwise tend to study in isolation makes his narrative surprisingly broad-ranging. Unprepared readers may find this bewildering at first, but Walker’s approach involving case studies yields pedagogical value in helping students learn about different angles of analysis that one may use to gain more nuanced historical understandings of industrial pollution.

Interesting is Walker’s observation of differences between American and Japanese traditions of environmental thinking, which, according to him, influenced the wording of the Basic Law for Pollution Control, passed in 1967. He notes that the Japanese law targeted “the living environment” (seikatsu kankyō) instead of “wilderness.” The former “comprises those landscapes and organisms most closely associated with human habitation,” while the latter “represents a place where we humans are not” (p. 217). Though he does not quite make explicit the connection to “hybrid causation,” he argues that the Japanese concept represents a partial learning of the lessons of the historical cases outlined in the book. Perhaps most controversial — and therefore useful for stimulating students’ discussion — is Walker’s rather grim view of future environmental problems. “I do not think that we, as a species, can remedy these problems immediately, perhaps not at all,” he writes (p. 223).

Though this book, published in 2010, obviously does not mention the 2011 triple disaster, the implications of “hybrid causation” clearly extend beyond these cases of industrial pollution to the realms of nuclear accidents and so-called “natural” disasters. Highly recommended, especially as reading material for undergraduate courses.

- Yoshiyuki Kikuchi

本: Suffering Made Real (1997)

Lindee, Susan. Suffering Made Real: American Science and the Survivors at Hiroshima. Chicago University Press, 1997.

広島と長崎への原爆投下後、放射線の遺伝影響研究はABCC（原子爆弾傷害調査委員会）の中心課題となった。スーザン・リンディーはアメリカの原爆調査の歴史を検討した著書 Suffering Made Real: American Science and the Survivors at Hiroshima 第4章でABCC の遺伝研究に焦点をあてている。

リンディーはABCCの遺伝影響研究を当時の遺伝学をめぐる状況とあわせて説明する。ABCCは当初、被爆者自身に対する放射線の生物的影響を調べることを計画していたが、それはすぐに彼らの子孫への放射線の遺伝影響調査を中心とするものへと変化した。その背景には、アメリカ合衆国原子力規制委員会などの遺伝影響は被爆者自身への影響よりもより恐ろしいものであるという認識に加え、一般社会の高い関心があった。ABCCの遺伝プロジェクトは内部のマネジメントと一般へのインパクトの双方で中心課題となったのである。

遺伝プロジェクトはとりわけ「誤解」されやすいものであった。1940年代までの遺伝研究には、遺伝学の手法の問題と優生学との関わりという、科学的及び社会的な難しさが取り巻いていた。そのため、被爆者に遺伝影響が起こることは確実であると思われていたが、ABCCの遺伝影響研究は有意な影響を示せずに失敗すると思われていた。ところが遺伝学のおかれた社会的状況は1950〜60年代を通して変化していく。リディーは、マラーやニールといった遺伝学者たちが広島と長崎で行った遺伝影響研究が、人間の遺伝形質へのより科学的なアプローチを示すものとして、生物学におけるビッグサイエンスの先駆例となったと指摘する。そのシステムを支えていたのは、日本人スタッフや妊婦、その他の研究材料たちであった。

（本書の邦訳は出版されてない。）

– Maika Nakao

단행본: 지진국가 (2006)

Editors’ Note: This is a Korean translation of a Teach 3.11 annotation. We invite volunteers to translate and/or contribute content in Korean, Japanese, and Chinese languages. Thank you. (한국어, 일본어, 중국어로 기존의 내용을 번역하거나 새로운 내용을 기고할 자원활동가를 찾고 있습니다.)

Clancey, Gregory. 2006. Earthquake Nation: The Cultural Politics of Japanese Seismicity, 1868-1930. University of California Press.

Earthquake Nation 은 비교적 최근–1995년 고베, 2011년 토호쿠와 칸토 지방—에 일어난 “일본 지진활동도(Japanese seismicity)”를 이해하는 데 매우 중요한 역사적 배경을 제공한다. 미국 기술사학회 에서 시상하는 시드니 에델슈타인 상의 2007년 수상작이기도 한 이 책은, 일본의 역사에서도 특히 역동적인 기간 동안 일어난 지진학, 건축학, 공학, 문화, 정치, 그리고 살아있는 지구의 복잡한 상호 작용을 설득력 있게 보여주고 있다.

메이지 시대(1868-1912)는 일본 역사에서 열성적으로 “근대화”에 노력을 기울였던 시기로 종종 그려진다. 이 시기 지진활동도는 일본인들의 자연, 기술, 그리고 “서양”의 지식과 일본을 비롯한 아시아 지역의 지식의 차이에 대한 이해를 형성해 나가는 데 있어 어떤 역할을 하였는가? 또한, 지진활동도의 과학, 기술, 그리고 이의 물리적 경험은 국가 건설, “근대화,” 그리고 제국의 확장에 어떻게 영향을 끼쳤는가? 클랜시는 정보를 풍부하게 담고 있으면서도 이해하기 쉬운 이 책에서, 이와 같은 질문들을 다루고 잇다.

이 책에서 다루고 있는 대부분의 분석과 이야기는 1891년 나고야 부근을 강타한 규모 8.0가량으로 추산되는 노비 대지진에 관한 것이다. 이 지진으로 인해 7,000명 이상이 사망하고 140,000명이 집을 잃었다. 메이지 시대 일본에 혹독한 시련을 가져다 준 재앙이었다. 클랜시는 이 노비 대지진 이전부터 시작하여, 도쿄와 요코하마를 초토화시키고 142,000명 가량이 사망한 것으로 추산되는 규모 7.9의 1923년 칸토 대지진과 이에 따른 화재에 이르기까지 “일본 지진활동도의 문화 정치학”을 추적한다.

클랜시의 주장은 다면적이고 복잡하지만, 그 일부를 들여다 보면 이렇다. 메이지 시대의 과열된 “근대화” (“서양화”)의 열기 속에서, 서양의 벽돌과 석조 중심의 건축물은 근대 문명의 상징이라고 할 수 있는 강하고 영속적이며 남성적인 이미지를 획득한 반면, 일본의 목조 건축 구조는 한물간 전통의 상징적인 모습, 즉, 약하고 일시적이며 여성적인 모습으로 그려졌다. 그러나 노비 대지진으로 인해 유연한 목조 건물들보다 더 만신창이가 된 단단한 석조건물들은 이러한 관념을 송두리째 흔들어 놓았다. 비록 이 지역 풍경은 산산조각이 난 일본식 건축물과 서양식 건축물의 잔해로 엉망이 되었지만, 일본 기자들과 예술가들은 이 지진으로 인하여 명백하게 드러난 서양식 구조의 취약성과 전통 건축물의 상대적인 탄력성이 서로 대조되는 놀라운 현상에 대한 담론을 재구성 해 나갔다. 이는 이후 일본의 국가 건설 프로젝트(궁극적으로는 제국주의적 확장)를 주도하는 새로운 민족주의적인 담론의 재 부상을 불러왔다.

이 책에서 클랜시가 다루고 있는 노비 대지진에 관한 대부분의 내용은 50페이지 가량의 논문으로도 출판되었다.

Clancey, Gregory. 2006. “The Meiji Earthquake: Nature, Nation, and the Ambiguities of Catastrophe.”Modern Asian Studies 40:909-951. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3876638.

– YeonSil Kang

 

논문: 저지대에서의 위험: 2011년 3월 11일 토호쿠 지진과 쓰나미의 역사적 맥락 (2011)

Editors’ Note: This is a Korean translation of a Teach 3.11 annotation. We invite volunteers to translate and/or contribute content in Korean, Japanese, and Chinese languages. Thank you. (한국어, 일본어, 중국어로 기존의 내용을 번역하거나 새로운 내용을 기고할 자원활동가를 찾고 있습니다.)

Smits, Gregory. 2011. “Danger in the Lowground: Historical Context for the March 11, 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami.” The Asia-Pacific Journal 9 (20), May 16

http://www.japanfocus.org/-Gregory-Smits/3531

2011년 3월 11일의 재앙 이후 며칠, 몇 주간 일본의 주요 신문들은 산리쿠 해변의 쓰나미에 대한 역사적인 기록들을 무려 869년의 조간 쓰나미부터 다시 살펴보았다. 아마도 이미 예견된 일이었겠지만, 미디어들은 이 역사적 사례들을 인용하며 후쿠시마 재앙의 위험과 책임소재를 논했다.¹

수년간 지진의 문화사를 연구해온 그레고리 스미츠는 The Asia Pacific Journal에 실린 이 글을 통해 바로 이 역사적인 기억과 위험에 대한 이슈를 다루었다. 에도 시대 (1600-1868)와 현대 시대의 쓰나미의 역사를 분석한 결과, 스미츠는 우리를 의기소침하게 만드는 결론에 다다랐다. 즉, 제도화된 기억을 만들 수 있었던 몇몇 사례도 있긴 했지만, 위험에 대한 사람들의 인식은 심지어 한 세대만에도 쉽게 희미해진다는 것이다. 예를 들어, 뉴욕타임스²에 실린 “쓰나미 돌”에 대한 기사를 보면, 쓰나미 돌은 비록 재해에 대한 충분한 경고의 메시지를 담고 있었음에도 불구하고 별다른 관심을 받지 못했고, 사고가 일어난 후에야 재조명 받았다.

스미츠는 토호쿠 대학의 히라가와 아라타의 작업도 인용했다. 히라가와 아라타는 1611년의 끔찍한 쓰나미 이후 도쿠가와 시대의 도로상 우편정거장들이 모두 쓰나미의 사정거리 밖으로 재배치 되었음을 지적하며, 메이지 유신 이후 쓰나미의 위협에 대한 자각이 잊혀져 가고 있다고 주장했다. 스미츠는 또한 재해를 입은 적이 있는 지역의 주민들이 쓰나미의 위험에 어떻게 반응하는지 연구하여, 주민 구성원의 순환이 역사적인 기억을 바탕으로 한 성공적인 예방을 저해할 수 있다는 의견을 내놓았다. 예를 들어, 스미츠는 현대의 도호쿠 지방과 에도 시대의 오사카 지역의 거주민이 유동적이었던 것이 재난에 대한 비효율적인 대응과 유용한 역사적 기억의 손실에 대한 근거가 될 수 있다는 것이다. 이는 비록 도호쿠 지역의 경험으로 인해 각종 준비가 가속화 될 것이라곤 해도, 여전히 기나긴 재해 발생 주기와 인구 변화로 인해 도쿄와 미국의 북서부지역에도 잠재적인 위험 요소가 있음을 의미한다.

그러나 스미츠에 의하면, 온전한 역사적인 기억도 가끔은 경고를 불러일으키는데 실패한다. 하나의 사례로는 1856년 8월 23일에 있었던 산리쿠 해안의 쓰나미가 있는데, 스미츠는 높은 사망률의 원인으로 주민들 사이에 퍼져 있었던 믿음을 지목한 기록을 인용하고 있다. 1611과 1793년의 쓰나미로 볼 때, 쓰나미는 당시 겨울에만 발생하는 것이라는 믿음이 있었다는 것이다. 마찬가지로, 1854년 12월 24일에 오사카를 덮쳤던 쓰나미의 사례를 보면, 지역적으로 멀리 떨어져 있던 이가-우에노에서 일어난 1854년 7월 9일의 지진에 대한 기억이, 오히려 지역적으로 가까워 더욱 중요하게 고려했어야 할 1707년의 호에이 지진과 뒤이은 쓰나미에 대한 기억을 덮어버렸다. 그 결과, 여진의 피해로부터 벗어나고자 지진 이후 배에 올라탔던 수백명의 오사카 주민들은 뒤이은 쓰나미로 인해 사망했다. 이러한 사례들은 비록 역사적인 기억이 시간과 세대를 넘어 보존된다고 하더라도, 다음 재난이 닥쳐왔을 때 안전과 생존에 기여하기는 어려울 수 있다는 결론에 다다르게 한다.

- June Jeon

1. Lyn, Tan Ee. 2011. “Japan’s tsunami history ignored: report; Previous study also downplayed; Size of past waves were not considered when Fukushima nuclear plant was built,” The Gazette (Montreal), April 14.

2. Fackler, Martin. 2011. “Tsunami Warnings for the Ages, Carved in Stone,” The New York Times, April 20.

Article: 災害資本主義の発動 二度破壊された神戸から何を学ぶのか？

Tsukahara, Tōgo. 2011.「災害資本主義の発動 二度破壊された神戸から何を

学ぶのか？」現代思想 *(Gendai Shisō)* vol. 39-7: 202-211.

本論文はナオミ・クラインの「災害資本主義」という概念に依拠しつつ、3.11の復興に付随する「大規模な社会的再編」について歴史的脈絡に即して分析した論考である。筆者によると、1995年に発生した阪神淡路大震災で破壊された神戸の街は、「復興」の名目のもとで組織的に公共事業などによって再び破壊され、震災の後に起きた自然と災害をめぐる科学論争も経済と行政権力の論理によって蹂躙された。筆者は、このような大災害を契機とした「組織的収奪」を促進する「災害資本主義」が3.11後の日本でも発動され、「総力戦体制の構築が行われる」と警鐘を鳴らしている。

また、科学史的見地から3.11を鑑みると、今回の原発事故は「技術的帝国主義の役割分担であり、軍事技術をアメリカに、代替えである発電の技術を日本が担うかたちのポスト・スリーマイル体制の制度疲労が露呈したもの」であると同時に、「明治から続く十九世紀的な帝国主義システムにおける科学技術体制の問題点の噴出」であるという（207頁）。これらの歴史的経験を踏まえた復興の科学的思想の枠組みとして、筆者は専門家が決定的な権威を持つ従来の「ノーマル・サイエンス」を超えた民主知に基づいた「ポスト・ノーマル・サイエンス」という概念を提示している。

本論文は、科学史的観点から3.11を理解するうえで役立つ文献であるとともに、神戸の復興などの教訓から3.11からの復興のあり方について考えるうえでの一つの見地を提示している。近代以降の歴史的知識を要するので、大学生（もしくは大学院生）以上の教材として適切であろう。

– Yasuhito Abe

BOOK: Troubled Natures: Waste, Environment, Japan (2011)

Kirby, Peter Wynn. Troubled Natures: Waste, Environment, Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2011.

Troubled Natures by Peter Wynn Kirby illustrates culturally specific understandings of waste in Japan gleaned through anthropological analysis. Blurring the distinction between the “human” and the “environment” while expanding the definition of “nature” in present day Japan, three chapters are of note for those interested in the social dimensions of environmental destruction. Chapter 4, “The Cult(ures) of Japanese Nature,” introduces Japanese conceptions of nature and the role of the environment in Japanese national identity.  Chapter 6, “Pure Obsession,” describes how Japanese conceptions of purified space and the handling of waste manifests in the practices of social exclusion. In Chapter 7, “Growth, Sex, Fertility, and Decline,” Kirby argues that environmental toxins play a forceful role in population decline and flagging national morale. While not specifically dealing with nuclear waste, these three chapters nonetheless contribute to our understanding of the formation of contemporary Japanese perceptions of the environment that are invaluable to contextualizing the events of March 11th, 2011.

Kirby suggests that Japanese engagement with nature is one that is highly abstracted and removed from the materiality of nature itself, which may shed light on why much of Japan’s environmental destruction goes uncontested except in local contexts. In his fourth chapter, the incongruities between the Japanese self-professed love of nature and the concrete urban environment that characterizes the lives of three quarters of the Japanese population are contextualized within the genre of nihonjinron, or “discourses on the Japanese.” Kirby argues that nature in the lives of most ordinary Japanese is a largely mediated phenomenon, and is consumed in highly curated forms such as sculptured gardens and bonsai trees. The nationwide fixation on the efflorescent bloom of cherry blossoms in the spring, or the peak of fall foliage in “leaf-hunting” season, further belies the fetishization of nature as a fleeting phenomenon, according to the author.

Emphasizing a culturally situated understanding of “nature,” Kirby’s discussion of the Japanese myth of an intrinsic predilection toward nature provides a context for understanding how the cultural demarcation between “nature” and the “unnatural” (waste and other forms of pollution) plays a role in the broader context of social exclusion in Japanese society. Detailed in the chapter entitled “Pure Obsession,” Kirby asserts that dirt is in the eye of the beholder and describes the rituals of purification in contemporary Japan as performances that reify social identity and order. The sanitization of everyday life from exposure to the foreign may manifest itself in domestic spaces, such as the demarcation of the home as a safe space that must duly be kept free of germs, or in more insidious forms such as widespread social discrimination, wherein entire social groups are marked as a form of “social pollution.” The author explains that groups such as the historically excluded burakumin untouchables and other low-status workers are actively involved in the waste industry, thereby allowing the space of mainstream Japanese society to be preserved as “pure.”

Kirby situates toxic waste within the contemporary discourse of social malaise and population decline in “Growth, Sex, Fertility, and Decline.” Relating economic stagnation with toxic waste, infertility, and flagging morale, Kirby describes the perception among the Japanese that the endocrine-disrupting “environmental hormones” circulating in the air are related to the apparently shrinking genital sizes of recent Japanese babies. In addition to the problems of economic stagnation, the author explores the consequences of the post-war, government sponsored, high growth regime that built “Japan Inc.” and how the reciprocal obligations between state and industry led to gross oversights in safety regulations that facilitated the environmental pollution that now threaten Japan’s ability to product a vibrant new generation of people in the not-too-distant future.

Troubled Natures‘ discussion of waste and the environment raises some important insights and questions that may be useful to scholars and teachers interested in the social dimensions of the 3.11 disasters. Some example discussion questions related to this text may include the following: How does the handling of nuclear waste contribute to the politics of exclusion in Japanese society? How does the nature of radioactive particles disturb the notion that spaces – such as the home – can be actively defended against foreign agents? How would the people affected by the triple disasters be re-integrated in Japanese society, given the emphasis on contamination and social pollution?

-Shoan Yin Cheung

書: 《地震國度: 日本地震的文化政治1868-1930 》（中文摘要）

Editors’ Note: This is a Chinese translation of a Teach 3.11 annotation. We invite volunteers to translate and/or contribute content in Korean, Japanese, and Chinese languages. Thank you.

《地震國度: 日本地震的文化政治1868-1930 》

Clancey, Gregory. 2006. Earthquake Nation: The Cultural Politics of Japanese Seismicity, 1868-1930. University of California Press.

《地震國度》幫助我們理解近期日本神戶、東北地區與關東等地區頻繁的地震活動背後的歷史脈絡。《地震國度》榮獲科技史年會（Society for the History of Technology）2007年的Sidney Edelstein獎。此書流暢地闡述日本明治時代中，關於地震學、建築、工程學、文化、政治、土地之間複雜的交互影響。 現代化（modernization）是日本明治時代（1868-1912）的重要特色。在此時期，地震學如何形塑日本社會中諸如「自然」、「科技」、「西方知識」（相較於日本或其他亞洲知識）等概念？地震活動及其相關科學、科技與經驗如何影響了國家建造（state-building）、現代化與日本帝國的擴張？作者 Clancey利用豐富且平易近人的案例來說明這些問題。

強度高達8級的濃尾地震是本書中主要分析的歷史事件。這是於1891年在名古屋附近發生的地震，導致7千人死亡，14萬人無家可歸，對明治政府是個嚴峻的考驗。為了分析「日本地震活動的文化政治性」，作者Clancey從1891年的濃尾地震談起，然後延伸到1923年震度7.9級的關東地震及火災，該地震摧毀東京與橫濱的多數建築，並導致約14萬2千人死亡。

Clancey的論點包括幾個複雜的面向，其中最核心的論點是：在明治時期現代化/西化熱潮下，西式磚瓦、石造建築贏在堅硬、永存且陽剛（作為一種現代文明的象徵），但木製日式建築被形容為脆弱、暫時且陰柔（作為一種被淘汰的傳統的符號）。當濃尾地震毀壞這些堅固石造建築時，濃尾地震已動搖了上述的象徵體系；木造建築於是被當作是具有良好彈性的傳統文化的象徵。雖然當地各地皆是許多日式建築崩壞的遺跡，但日本記者跟藝術家仍然再製了一個新論述來說明日本建築比起西方建築更具有良好彈性。此新論述激發了新的本土文化保護、國族主義式的論述，而這樣的論述也為日本國家建造計畫（state-building）的支持者所接受，此國家建造計劃最終轉變成帝國主義。

對於想使用精簡版本的老師或學生而言，Clancey曾發表一篇50頁關於濃尾地震的文章: Clancey, Gregory. 2006. “The Meiji Earthquake: Nature, Nation, and the Ambiguities of Catastrophe.” Modern Asian Studies 40: 909-951. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3876638.

- Translation by Kuan-Hung Lo

NOTE: Social History of Nuclear Power: Its Development in Japan (2011 edition)

Editors’ Note: Readers may be interested to know that a new edition of Hitoshi Yoshioka’s book Genshiryoku no shakaishi: sono Nihon-teki tenkai (A Social History of Nuclear Power: Its Development in Japan) was published by Asahi Shimbunshuppan in October 2011. Click here to view an annotation based on the first edition, printed in 1999.

FILM: The Sketch of Mujō (2011)

Ōmiya, Kōichi [大宮浩一]. 2011. Mujō Sobyō. 無常素描 [The Sketch of Mujō]. Tokyo: TOFOO Films. HD documentary film, 75 min., http://mujosobyo.jp/

Ōmiya Koichi’s The Sketch of Mujō [Mujō Sobyō] is the first documentary film to take a ground-level view of life in Iwate prefecture following the 3/11 disaster. Ōmiya combines different types of “sketches”: short interviews with those who survived the disaster and astonishing views of the devastated landscapes of Miyako City, a farming and fishing community that bore the brunt of the tsunami. The film brings voices and images together with a meditation on the medieval concept of mujō — the transience of all things. A longstanding theme in Japanese art and letters, the classical expressions of mujō appear in the opening passages of The Ten Foot Square Hut [Hōjōki] and The Tale of the Heike [Heike monogatari]. Ōmiya’s film explores both the reality of the disaster, and the notion of mujō as a term of reconciliation.

The film is narrated by farmers and fishermen, retirees, and doctors. There is neither a voice over, nor any overt directorial presence in this film. Fishermen speak of their boats destroyed or swept away, the poisoning of the sea with industrial pollution unlocked by the disaster, and above all, their concerns about the future. Uncertainty and a sense of shock weigh heavily in every interview. One woman recounts that after the tsunami there was no television, but that once power was eventually restored and they could see televised images again, they suddenly felt more vulnerable; she must come to terms with being a survivor even though she feels as though she is not allowed to live her life. The interviewee resolves to be strong, and to live for her friends who did not survive.

Ōmiya devotes a considerable amount of time to simply looking at the effects of the disaster. A series of long tracking shots from moving vehicles and boats take in the sheer expanse of the devastation, gradually transforming our sense of its limits. Boats, ships, cars and trucks lay inert, their metal skins crushed. Immense cement breakwaters have been toppled like toy blocks. Rescue teams comb the debris, and cranes slowly chip at destroyed buildings, like insects laboring over a vast pavement of destruction. In these scenes, Ōmiya refuses the facile optimism of green shoots, of a lyrical return of nature and its creatures. Instead, we are shown mountains of debris, obliterated landscapes, and through these combined views a sense of overwhelming scale becomes more concrete. Tracking shots grant us time to reflect, to begin to organize our thoughts about what we are seeing.

While the views of landscape are sustained, the interviews with people are uniformly brief. There is a sense of cordial anonymity. Ōmiya’s interlocutors are never introduced as characters in a “story” of this tragedy. They are not given the permanence of proper names, but this distance is also his way of protecting them, of gently listening as they find the words to express their experiences. Viewers thus gain a broader sense of the people of Iwate, of their concerns about their families, their métiers, and their shared future. A monk observes that the economic prosperity of postwar Japan was never really shared by Tōhoku. It has always been a place where people struggled with the fortunes of nature. Now, the people of Tōhoku are praised everywhere for their strength and resolve — values that are being forgotten elsewhere in Japan, gradually eroded by waves of technological progress and economic prosperity. He submits that these values need to be preserved, and learned anew by others.

In this respect, the film’s title is slightly deceptive, for Ōmiya does not simply propose that we make sense of the disaster by recourse to the Buddhist doctrine of impermanence. Rather, he foregrounds his own sense of urgency, his haste to capture and quickly communicate the experience and image of disaster before it becomes lost. This prompts us to ask: what threatens our understanding and future recollection of this catastrophe? How can we come to terms with disaster, but without forgetting its fundamental experience of fear? As an exploration of this dilemma, The Sketch of Mujō sides with the work of memory more than the acceptance of transience.

— M. Downing Roberts

This film is distributed by http://tongpoo-films.jp/

劇場情報：http://mujosobyo.jp/theater.html

Foreign screenings:
Region: Paris, France
Event: RENDEZ-VOUS AVEC LE JAPON
Date & Time: 15th Oct. am10:30~
Place: La Pagode

Region: New York, USA
Event: Dialogue of Cultures International Film Festival
Date & Time: 20th ~ 23rd Oct.
“The Sketch of Mujo” will be the closing event on the 23rd.
Place: School of Visual Arts

CHAPTER: Technology versus Commercial Feasibility: Nuclear Power and Electric Utilities (1999)

Low, Morris, Shigeru Nakayama, and Hitoshi Yoshioka. 1999. “Technology versus Commercial Feasibility: Nuclear Power and Electric Utilities.” In Science, Technology and Society in Contemporary Japan, 66-81. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

This article is a chapter of a book coauthored by Morris Low, Shigeru Nakayama, and Hitoshi Yoshioka on the contemporary history of science and technology in Japan, published in the same year as Yoshioka’s book 原子力の社会史 (A Social History of Nuclear Power).   This chapter is a condensed account of the history of nuclear power in Japan, presumably authored primarily by Yoshioka.

Covering the early history of electric power before the war, the beginning of the atomic energy program in the 1950s, the introduction of reactors in the 1960s, and the fast breeder program up to the 1990s, this chapter examines the complex relations between the public good and private interests in technology and its industrial applications. While the power industry has been dominated by the private sector, and much of the responsibility for the nuclear power program has been carried by private power companies, the article argues that the distinction between private interests and the public good is blurred in Japan, and that it is not always clear which interests are served by the development of nuclear power.

As in Yoshioka’s book, this article claims that the development of nuclear reactors was motivated by a kind of “dual structure” consisting of two groups: MITI (the Ministry of International Trade and Industry) and private industry; and the STA (Science and Technology Agency) with public research corporations such as JAERI (Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute). The main task of the MITI group is the gradual expansion of the commercial nuclear enterprise, mainly by importing US reactors, whereas the STA group’s mission is the research and development of as-yet commercially unproven technologies such as fast breeder reactor designs and nuclear fusion.

The article claims, for example, that the reason Japan adhered to the fast breeder program can be explained by this dual structure — specifically the STA’s attempt to exert its influence. It was not that Japan was attempting to become an international nuclear power through its plutonium program; rather, the STA was using this program to maintain its domestic influence. The STA’s two main areas of jurisdiction were nuclear research and Japan’s space program. The uncertainty of the future of the space program rendered it an unreliable foundation upon which to justify the agency’s existence. In contrast, nuclear power was seen as a better bet; thus, the agency prioritized research on fast breeder reactor technology.

— Kenji Ito

WEBSITE: “Tokyo Modern” from MIT’s Visualizing Cultures project

Tokyo Modern I: Koizumi Kishio’s “100 Views” of the Imperial Capital (1928-1940), available at:  http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/tokyo_modern_01/index.html

While people in Japan are still suffering from the shock of earthquakes and tsunami, soon there will be efforts to rebuild cities, villages, and the infrastructure between them. How are places and communities reborn after indescribable devastation? How do they regain their former vitality? What social and cultural tensions are revealed during the process of recovery?

Tokyo in the aftermath of the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923 offers one historical precedent. In this educational unit titled “Tokyo Modern,” the reconstruction of Tokyo following the massive earthquake is visualized through numerous woodblock prints by Koizumi Kishio and other contemporary artists. In his essay for the unit, James Ulak, the deputy director of Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution, writes of “the exuberant rebirth of Tokyo that took place after 1923:”

The earthquake was a catastrophe—but also the occasion for massive reconstruction in modern, up-to-date ways. ‘New Tokyo’ became a catchphrase of the time. Imposing structures of steel and stone were one manifestation of this. Mass transit including a subway system was another. Yet another manifestation of rebirth was the emergence of vibrant inner-city districts devoted to governance, commerce, and entertainment. After the earthquake, Tokyo began to emerge as one of the world’s great cosmopolitan cities.

The unit features digital scans of Koizumi’s woodblock prints along with his own annotations, which depict Tokyo’s urban scenes of construction and vitality. This will be a good source for discussion on how to re-imagine the future of a devastated region and how to deal with newly emerging political, economic, and social concerns in the process. Ulak comments on possible effects of the recovery efforts on Japan’s subsequent path:

Central to recovery was a secure source of natural resources, most readily available in the northeastern Chinese territory of Manchuria. Ensuring such access became a development parallel and not unrelated to reconstruction at home, leading to increased Japanese militarism and eventually war.

After all, the ultra-modern Tokyo that began to rise above the ruins of the earthquake could rise above neither its uneasy present nor its uncertain future.

The long journey from Tokyo’s earthquake-devastated landscape to a city reordered, rebuilt, and renewed, was narrated in official literature as a kind of ‘march of progress,’ a sequence of mercantile successes and modernizing projects. Yet, contrary news—resistance and war in China, political assassinations at home—gave Japanese reason to view the newly formed city and its outlying empire with some skepticism. And beneath the vicissitudes of daily life the earthquake had left a permanent memory scar that quietly mocked optimism. Living in the new city required adjustment to changed configurations, different points of emphasis, and, most importantly, resetting awareness of the places that conveyed a sense of identity and stability.

Visualizing Cultures, of which “Tokyo Modern” is a part, is a web-based educational project on the modern history of East Asia. It is headed by two MIT professors, John W. Dower and Shigeru Miyagawa. The project has been digitizing a vast amount of visual historical materials from Japan, China, and elsewhere, and contextualizing them with thoughtful essays and annotations. Its initial focus was on modern Japan, but it has been expanding its scope to cover China as well, particularly with the participation of Professor Peter Purdue at Yale University.

“Tokyo Modern” lists a number of sources on the Kantō earthquake and reconstruction, including website links to images from the period in question.

— Chihyung Jeon

Further readings:

Seidensticker, Edwin. 1991. Low City, High City: Tokyo from Edo to the Earthquake: how the shogun’s ancient capital became a great modern city, 1867–1923. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Seidensticker, Edwin. 1991. Tokyo Rising: The City Since the Great Earthquake. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

ARTICLE: Social Decision-making Processes in Local Contexts: An STS Case Study on Nuclear Power Plant Siting in Japan (2007) [Chinese]

Juraku, Kohta, Tatsujiro Suzuki, and Osamu Sakura. 2007. “Social Decision-making Processes in Local Contexts: An STS Case Study on Nuclear Power Plant Siting in Japan.” East Asian Science, Technology and Society 1 (1): 53-75. Available at http://www.springerlink.com/content/51243p18300u0n84/.

EASTS的「科技的公民參與」創刊號裡，東大的日本學者壽樂浩太等人，針對日本新瀉縣卷町興建核能電廠所展開的公投過程，強調地方文化與地方政治結構，如何影響科技政策決定。他們提出「相關邊緣行動者」的概念，認為在此案例中，相關邊緣行動者特別能打破科技爭議的死結。這個案例也是日本核能爭議的重要案例。1990年代中期，當時新瀉縣卷町的市長支持蓋核電廠，可是反核人士反對，並要求地方公投，但是市長拒絕。在此反核擁核的爭議中，有一個平常不涉入雙邊政治的 Takaaki Sasaguchi 出面辦理市民公投（約兩萬多人的小鎮），以 求公投的公正。這位 Sasaguchi 是當地一家著名清酒釀造的老闆，並在下一次的選舉就當選成市長。當時於1995年所進行的公投，投票率八成八，五成四反對。期間又有日本著名的文殊電廠輻射事件，隔年又有阪神大地震，居民反核變強，但是擁核人士質疑地方公投的正當性，藉由打官司處理此爭議。Sasaguchi 市長開始把地方設施土地賣給支持其反核政策的人士，但是擁核與東北電力仍透過各種行政官司上訴，其中也有些敗訴。總之結果是2003年東北電力撤銷了這次的建核案。對於日本民間如何以政治行動處理核電廠爭議，這篇論文提供了一個精彩的案例。— Chia-Ling Wu

For a Japanese abstract of this article, see EASTS.
Click here to see an English language annotation of this article.

Further readings:

Fujigaki, Yuko, 2009. “STS in Japan and East Asia: Governance of Science and Technology and Public Engagement.” East Asian Science, Technology and Society 3(4): 511-518. link

Fujigaki introduces an STS textbook chapter aiming to teach STS concepts by using the Monju Nuclear Power Plant Incidents in 1995.

Chen, Dung-Sheng and Chia-Ling Wu, eds. 2007. East Asian Science, Technology and Society 1 (1), a special issue on public participation in science and technology in East Asia. link

As Juraku, Suzuki, and Sakura’s article appears in this special issue, teachers and students may find its other articles helpful.

ARTICLE: Social Decision-making Processes in Local Contexts: An STS Case Study on Nuclear Power Plant Siting in Japan (2007)

Juraku, Kohta, Tatsujiro Suzuki, and Osamu Sakura. 2007. “Social Decision-making Processes in Local Contexts: An STS Case Study on Nuclear Power Plant Siting in Japan.” East Asian Science, Technology and Society 1 (1): 53-75. Available at http://www.springerlink.com/content/51243p18300u0n84/.

In contrast to the worries over the ongoing incident in Fukushima, a study on nuclear power plant siting in Maki-machi, Niigata provides some interesting if not optimistic insights regarding decision-making processes about nuclear energy in Japan. Published in East Asian Science, Technology and Society in 2007, Juraku, Suzuki, and Sakura’s article introduces how the Tohoku Electric Power Corporation canceled its Maki-machi nuclear power plant plan in 2003 due to a series of local efforts, including a citizen’s referendum, a mayoral recall election, and antinuclear residents’ acquisition of land in the proposed area. Teachers and students interested in public engagement with respect to nuclear power plant siting will appreciate the authors’ fascinating delineation of Maki-machi’s complex local political and social structure as well as numerous intriguing events regarding the debate over the proposed nuclear power plant from the 1970s to 2003.

Juraku, Suzuki, and Sakura characterize their article as a sociological STS case study. They propose the concept of “relevant marginal actor” to identify a group of Maki-machi residents that advocated a citizen’s referendum in 1995 and an ordinance-based referendum in 1996 to allow residents to express their opinion. As this referendum movement group owned a different public image from the existing political cliques and antinuclear groups, referendum advocates successfully settled the debate over the proposed nuclear power plant. For Juraku, Suzuki, and Sakura, the relevant marginal actors in Maki-machi made a breakthrough in a “deadlocked situation” which lasted since the early ‘80s.

The excerpt below illustrates an intriguing and dramatic event described in this article, which throws light on how the history of nuclear energy rests in the hands of citizens residing in these localities:

“In other words, a referendum would be never carried out as long as Mayor Sato was in office. …. Consequently, the referendum movement group began a campaign to recall the mayor. It seemed that it would be very difficult to collect the necessary number of signatures to call for a recall election because it was not anonymous. It was predicted that citizens would hesitate to reveal their names in public. But, contrary to this prediction, the required number of signatures was collected in just 2 weeks. Mayor Sato recognized he had lost, and on December 15, 1995, he resigned of his own will before the recall election.” (Juraku, Suzuki, and Sakura 2007, 63)

— Honghong Tinn

Chia-Ling Wu, of the EASTS editorial board, shares her Chinese annotation of this article:

EASTS的「科技的公民參與」創刊號裡，東大的日本學者壽樂浩太等人，針對日本新瀉縣卷町興建核能電廠所展開的公投過程，強調地方文化與地方政治結構，如何影響科技政策決定。他們提出「相關邊緣行動者」的概念，認為在此案例中，相關邊緣行動者特別能打破科技爭議的死結。這個案例也是日本核能爭議的重要案例。1990年代中期，當時新瀉縣卷町的市長支持蓋核電廠，可是反核人士反對，並要求地方公投，但是市長拒絕。在此反核擁核的爭議中，有一個平常不涉入雙邊政治的 Takaaki Sasaguchi 出面辦理市民公投（約兩萬多人的小鎮），以 求公投的公正。這位 Sasaguchi 是當地一家著名清酒釀造的老闆，並在下一次的選舉就當選成市長。當時於1995年所進行的公投，投票率八成八，五成四反對。期間又有日本著名的文殊電廠輻射事件，隔年又有阪神大地震，居民反核變強，但是擁核人士質疑地方公投的正當性，藉由打官司處理此爭議。Sasaguchi 市長開始把地方設施土地賣給支持其反核政策的人士，但是擁核與東北電力仍透過各種行政官司上訴，其中也有些敗訴。總之結果是2003年東北電力撤銷了這次的建核案。對於日本民間如何以政治行動處理核電廠爭議，這篇論文提供了一個精彩的案例。— Chia-Ling Wu

For a Japanese abstract of this article, see EASTS.

Further readings:

Fujigaki, Yuko, 2009. “STS in Japan and East Asia: Governance of Science and Technology and Public Engagement.” East Asian Science, Technology and Society 3(4): 511-518. link

Fujigaki introduces an STS textbook chapter aiming to teach STS concepts by using the Monju Nuclear Power Plant Incidents in 1995.

Chen, Dung-Sheng and Chia-Ling Wu, eds. 2007. East Asian Science, Technology and Society 1 (1), a special issue on public participation in science and technology in East Asia. link

As Juraku, Suzuki, and Sakura’s article appears in this special issue, teachers and students may find its other articles helpful.

ARTICLE: Danger in the Lowground: Historical Context for the March 11, 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami (2011)

Smits, Gregory. 2011. “Danger in the Lowground: Historical Context for the March 11, 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami.” The Asia-Pacific Journal 9 (20), May 16. http://www.japanfocus.org/-Gregory-Smits/3531

In the days and weeks following the disaster on March 11, 2011, the Japanese popular press revisited the tsunami history of the Sanriku coast, going back as far as the 869 Jōgan tsunami. As perhaps expected, the news media invoked this history in discussions of risk and blame, particularly in light of the Fukushima disaster.¹

Gregory Smits, who has studied the cultural history of earthquakes for several years, tackles the issue of historical memory and risk in this article published in The Asia Pacific Journal. By considering the histories of tsunamis that occurred primarily in the Edo (1600-1868) and modern periods, Smits comes to a rather disheartening conclusion: despite some apparently successful cases of institutional memory, the perception of risk seems to fade quickly, within even a generation. For example, the “tsunami stones,” reported in the New York Times,² may have provided a warning to some, but apparently had been a less remarkable feature of the landscape to others, before the disaster granted them new relevance.

Smits cites the work of Hirakawa Arata of Tōhoku University, who claims that the Tokugawa highway post-stations were all (re-)located beyond the reach of a devastating 1611 tsunami, and argues that the post-Meiji population had lost its sense of tsunami risk. Having investigated people’s reactions to tsunami risk after an area had been devastated, Smits argues that population turnover may be the greatest impediment to successful prevention efforts based on historical memory. In examples raised by Smits, Tohoku in the modern period and Osaka in the Edo Period, the lack of a stable population is given as the main explanation for the impermanence of useful historical memory and effective countermeasures. Long periodicity and the ease of population movement lead to concern for the possibility of a similar disaster in Tokyo and the Pacific Northwest region of the United States, although Smits expresses the hope that the Tōhoku experience might spur preparations.

Intact historical memory has also failed to provide warning in some cases, according to Smits. One such case was a tsunami that hit the Sanriku coast on August 23, 1856. Smits cites a record that blames a folk belief for the high death toll of that disaster. Apparently derived from tsunamis in 1611 and 1793, this was the belief that tsunamis only occur in winter. Likewise, in the case of a tsunami that hit Osaka on December 24, 1854, Smits thinks that the recent memory of the more geographically distant Iga-Ueno Earthquake of July 9, 1854, overrode the memory of the more temporally distant Hōei Earthquake and tsunami of 1707. As a result, hundreds of Osaka residents were led to their deaths when they fled to boats in the immediate aftermath of the shaking in order to ride out aftershocks. These cases lead to the distressing conclusion that even if historical memory were preserved through time and the turnover of generations, it might not be enough to improve safety and survivability when the next disaster strikes.

— Kristina Buhrman

1. Lyn, Tan Ee. 2011. “Japan’s tsunami history ignored: report; Previous study also downplayed; Size of past waves were not considered when Fukushima nuclear plant was built,” The Gazette (Montreal), April 14.

2. Fackler, Martin. 2011. “Tsunami Warnings for the Ages, Carved in Stone,” The New York Times, April 20.

ARTICLE: ‘The Energy of a Bright Tomorrow:’ The Rise of Nuclear Power in Japan (2011)

Nelson, Craig. 2011. “‘The Energy of a Bright Tomorrow’: The Rise of Nuclear Power in Japan.” Origins 4 (9) (June). http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/origins/article.cfm?articleid=57.

Ohio State University’s online journal Origins (tagline: “Current Events in Historical Perspective”) has published a highly accessible article by Craig Nelson, a historian of Japanese nuclear power. Nelson fulfills the promise of the journal’s tagline by providing a concise overview of the history of nuclear power in Japan, tracing the story of how a nation victimized by atomic bombings and viscerally opposed to nuclear weapons could become among the world’s most dependent upon nuclear power generation. This article, appropriate for readers at the high school level and up, will be useful for teachers and students who wish to learn more about the often-ignored history of “nukes” in Japan spanning the period between the three names that everyone now recognizes: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Fukushima.

Here is a brief excerpt:

We are haunted by the specter of our nuclear past. And given Japan’s complicated past with nuclear issues, it is especially surprising that Japan now has such a highly developed civilian nuclear power program, the third largest in the world after those of the United States and France.

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, fallout from the testing of Soviet nuclear weapons, and the Lucky Dragon Incident of 1954 left the Japanese in the 1950s with what some observers have called a “nuclear allergy.” Historically, Japanese anti-nuclear-weapons activists have been among the most vigorous in the world.

But the desperate need for energy to power Japan’s rapid economic growth and the complexities of post-World War II international relations together led the Japanese government to pursue nuclear power.

Choosing a nuclear policy was one thing, persuading an initially reluctant public was quite another.   The government and electric utilities promoted the nuclear power option relentlessly, starting a public relations campaign in the mid-1950s that strove to cement a positive image of nuclear power in the public eye.

In Futaba, a sign bearing the town’s motto—“nuclear power is the energy of a bright tomorrow”—now stands as an eerie reminder of that campaign for a nuclear-powered future.

But nuclear power has remained a sensitive issue and the public has long expressed ambiguous feelings and increasing concern toward it.  The government, by contrast, has remained a firm supporter, even in the face of incidents and disaster that gave rise to questions about the wisdom and safety of nuclear power, such as Chernobyl and Three Mile Island (1979).

Regardless of the outcome of the disaster at Fukushima Daiichi, nuclear issues have played a starring role in Japanese politics, society, and culture for the past seventy years—one that is unlikely to disappear in the near future.

Read the full article at Origins.

Listen to an NPR interview with author Craig Nelson about the history of nuclear power in Japan.

ARTICLE: Chernobyl’s Survivors: Paralyzed by Fatalism or Overlooked by Science? (2011) [Japanese]

Petryna, Adriana. 2011. “Chernobyl’s survivors: Paralyzed by fatalism or overlooked by science?” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 67 (2): 30 -37. DOI: 10.1177/0096340211400177. Available at http://bos.sagepub.com/content/67/2/30.abstract.

チェルノブイリ原発事故後のウクライナで調査した人類学者の論文。要旨は、国連などの放射能被害調査では、「危険性への誤った見解から生じるストレスが被害を甚大化させた」という論調で被害の決着化を図るが、1）そのような結論は被曝を回避するためにとった人々の行動と努力を無力化する、2）日本の原爆被害調査を鑑みれば、結論を出すにはさらに長期間を要する、3）ソ連崩壊・市場経済導入で長期にわたるデータ収集が断絶された、4）安全な被曝限度は時代と政治体制の文脈で変化する、5）被害補償を求める身体の政治化が継続している、などの理由で、放射能被害を今後も直視し続ける必要がある、と主張。

– Fumitaka Wakamatsu

Further reading:

Petryna, Adriana. 2002. Life Exposed: Biological Citizens after Chernobyl. 1st ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

ARTICLE: Chernobyl’s Survivors: Paralyzed by Fatalism or Overlooked by Science? (2011) [English]

Petryna, Adriana. 2011. “Chernobyl’s survivors: Paralyzed by fatalism or overlooked by science?” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 67 (2): 30 -37. DOI: 10.1177/0096340211400177. Available at http://bos.sagepub.com/content/67/2/30.abstract.

This is an article by Adriana Petryna, an anthropologist who conducted field work in the Ukraine following the nuclear accident at Chernobyl. Like her book Life Exposed: Biological Citizens after Chernobyl, this article helps provide a point of comparison for understanding some of the issues facing citizens exposed to radiation from Fukushima, as they begin what is likely to be a long and lonely struggle for social and political legitimation as victims of the policies of the state-supported nuclear power apparatus in Japan.

In summary, Petryna argues that while inquiries into radiation-related injuries by organizations such as the United Nations concluded that stress caused by misperceptions of radioactive threat exacerbated the damage, the following points must be considered:

1. Such a conclusion trivializes the activities and efforts of those who tried to avoid exposure to radiation.
2. In light of Japanese studies of the effects of the atomic bombs, an even longer period of investigation will be necessary in order to come to any legitimate conclusion in this case.
3. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the implementation of a market economy broke off years of data collection.
4. “Safe” limits of radiation exposure are contingent upon historical and political contexts.
5. The politicization of bodies seeking compensation for damages continues today.

For these reasons and others, Petryna stresses the continued necessity of confronting and examining the damage caused by radiation.

– Fumitaka Wakamatsu, with English translation and text by Jennifer Lillie and Tyson Vaughan

Further reading:

Petryna, Adriana. 2002. Life Exposed: Biological Citizens after Chernobyl. 1st ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

BOOK: A Social History of Nuclear Power: Its Development in Japan (1999)

Editors’ Note: A new edition of this book was published in 2011 by Asahi Shimbunsha after  this annotation was originally posted. 

Yoshioka, Hitoshi 吉岡斉. 1999. Genshiryoku no shakaishi: sono Nihon-teki tenkai. 原子力の社会史―その日本的展開. Asahi Shinbunsha. 朝日新聞社.

Hitoshi Yoshioka gives an overview and analysis of the development of nuclear power in Japan from wartime to the late 1990s in this social history. In what stands as the most comprehensive and reliable single-volume Japanese scholarly work on this topic, Yoshioka argues that this development can be understood mainly as what he calls a “dual structure subgovernment model.” According to this model, policy decisions concerning nuclear power have been monopolized by two insider groups: the alliance of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and Japan’s electric power industry on the one hand, and the Science and Technology Agency on the other, which in combination constitute a “subgovernment” outside of democratic control. The development of nuclear power in Japan is basically understood as a result of these groups’ power struggles to maintain or extend their vested interests. These two camps sometimes competed and sometimes made compromises with each other, but in either case they did not necessarily aim to achieve public good. Yoshioka writes that the development of nuclear power in Japan has been based on this model, but his rich narrative also includes various other aspects of the social issues surrounding the history of nuclear power in Japan.

Although Yoshioka’s book has remained the most authoritative source on the topic of nuclear power in Japan for over a decade, it unfortunately lacks documentation such as footnotes or end notes, although it does contain bibliographical notes, and the author occasionally refers to some sources within the text. The author has also published some portions of this book in the form of several articles, some of which appear in English.

– Kenji Ito

A longer review of this book in Japanese by Kenji Ito is available here: http://d.hatena.ne.jp/kenjiito/20110509/p1（日本語）

Suggested readings:

Low, Morris F., and Hitoshi Yoshioka. 1989. “Buying the ‘Peaceful Atom’: The Development of Nuclear Power in Japan.” Historia Scientiarum 38: 29-44.

Yoshioka, Hitoshi. 1999. “Technology versus Commercial Feasibility: Nuclear Power and Electric Utilities,” in Science, Technology and Society In Contemporary Japan, edited by Morris Low, Shigeru Nakayama, and Hitoshi Yoshioka, 66-81. Cambridge University Press.

BOOK: Local Environmental Movements: A Comparative Study of the United States and Japan (2008)

Karan, Pradyumna and Unryu Suganuma, eds. 2008. Local Environmental Movements: A Comparative Study of the United States and Japan. University Press of Kentucky.

This edited volume consists of a number of interesting essays covering a wide range of issues and topics including industrial sites, chemical weapons, nuclear weapons, conservation, resource management, preservation, protests, and nuclear power. The fifth chapter by Nathalie Cavasin deserves particular attention: “Citizen Activism and the Nuclear Industry in Japan: After the Tokai Village Disaster” details how the people of Tokaimura reevaluated nuclear power after the Tokaimura nuclear accident of 1999. This case profiles poorly trained workers who mixed uranium oxide with the wrong type of acid, resulting in an accidental chain reaction that released large amounts of radiation that killed three people and exposed dozens to above normal levels of radiation. Tokaimura plays host a number of important research centers for the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (formerly the Japanese Atomic Energy Research Institute) and is the site of a number of nuclear reactors and fuel processing centers. The article is regrettably short, but provides some interesting parallels to the accident at Fukushima.

Also worthy of mention is the second chapter, “A Comparative History of U.S. and Japanese Environmental Movements” by Richard Forrest, Miranda Schreurs, and Rachel Penrod, which offers an informative comparative overview of the environmental movements in the U.S. and Japan, describing the history, development and intellectual underpinnings of those movements. The fourth chapter by Kim Reimann, “Going Global: The Use of International Politics and Norms in Local Environmental Protest Movements in Japan,” poses relevance because it discusses how Japanese protesters have moved to using international standards and norms to persuade people of the necessity of change to conform to global standards.

– Craig Nelson