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

ARTICLE: Containing the Atom: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Nuclear Power in the United States and South Korea (2009)

Jasanoff, Sheila, and Sang-Hyun Kim. 2009. “Containing the Atom: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Nuclear Power in the United States and South Korea.” Minerva 47: 119-146.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/y2738665782223l6/

By introducing the concept of “sociotechnical imaginaries,” this article examines and compares the historical differences of such imaginaries concerning nuclear power between the United States and South Korea. For the United States, the dominant imagery for nuclear power was a potentially “runaway” technology that required responsible “containment” to keep it under control, whereas South Korea regarded nuclear power as “atoms for development” and “a symbol of the power of science and technology” that the state desired to indigenize. The disparate imaginaries for nuclear power have evolved into not only diverged power-plant designs, but also different “civic epistemologies,” policies, and strategies on radioactive waste management and risk assessment in each country.

As Jasanoff and Kim point out, the imaginaries concept helps explain how the states and their citizens reacted to a variety of nuclear disasters and challenges such as Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and anti-nuclear movements. This imaginaries concept may also help students analyze how nations that have been embracing nuclear power technology such as Japan, the United States, South Korea, France, Germany, and others, react to the recent triple disasters in Japan on March 11, 2011. Moreover, this article could be used to help encourage students to think about and invent alternative sociotechnical imaginaries of nuclear power beyond containment and development options to contribute to a better understanding of the controversial technology.

–Ling-Fei Lin

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

FILM: Various British Pathé Newsreels (1952 – 1962)

Footage from the following three short newsreels were selected in order to show the prevailing anti-nuclear sentiment in parts of the Japanese public during the 1950s and 1960s. At the height of the protests against the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan (anpo jōyaku) in 1960, hundreds of thousands of Japanese took their anger to the streets in front of the National Diet. Considering such background, it may be hard to grasp at first why relatively few protesters have rallied against nuclear energy during the height of the Fukushima nuclear crisis so far. To put things into perspective, in the period of time immediately preceding Fukushima, fewer than 50 people would have typically demonstrated at any given time; the demonstrations of 10 April 2011, in which approximately 17,500 people marched in Tokyo and elsewhere in Japan, thus marks a dramatic increase. However, comparing contemporary demonstrations with those seen in the newsreel footage shown here, or with concurrent demonstrations in Germany this spring that have attracted 250,000 protesters, Japan’s protest movement remains comparatively small. How did what seems a largely uncritical acceptance of nuclear energy in Japan come to the fore?  –Christian Dimmer

British Pathé. 1957. Atom Fear Stirs Japan. Video, from British Pathé video film archive,
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=66625

Opening with the remarkable line, “radioactive rain brings new fears to atom-conscious Japan,” this snippet shows the strong public concern over British and Russian nuclear tests that have caused radioactive rain in Japan. Over 15,000 protest in front of the British embassy and umbrellas become a sales hit.

British Pathé. 1957. Jap Protest. Video, from British Pathé video film archive, 
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=32824

“Stop the tests,” demonstrators in Tokyo demand in the aftermath of American and Russian nuclear tests. The strong anti-nuclear sentiment is further heightened by Britain’s announcement to also begin with hydrogen bomb tests. Subsequently, protests by “Japs,” as the announcer describes (a term that gained a derogatory connotation during World War II, now considered an ethnic slur), are staged in front of the American, Russian and British embassies in Tokyo.

British Pathé. 1962. Ban The Bomb Demonstration in Tokyo. Video, from British Pathé video film archive, 
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=62269

Various scenes show a small group of students who protest the United State’s plan to resume nuclear tests in the atmosphere. The political bias of this Cold War newsreel is noted by the caricature of the demonstrators in which “leftists protest atom tests,” resisting the police with ”fanatical left-wing zeal.”

FILM: Tale Of Two Cities (1946)

United States War Department. 1946. Tale of Two Cities. YouTube video, 12: 03 min, posted by “nuclearvault,” Sep 5, 2009,

This short 12-minute film, produced by the U.S. War Department, begins with the Trinity nuclear test in the desert of New Mexico in July 1945. Accompanying the picture of an atomic explosion, the narrator announces that on that day “the atomic age was born.” Shortly thereafter, the destructive forces of the atom are unleashed against civilian targets, for the first and only time in history: the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As if describing a scientific experiment, the narrator takes the viewer on a tour through the ruins of the two devastated cities. It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that the fresh impression of the horrific effects of the atom on the two cities and their people gave way to a strong opposition movement in early postwar Japan. This skepticism and fear would also obstruct the introduction of the peaceful use of nuclear energy in later years. –Christian Dimmer

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Various versions of the film document can be downloaded at the Internet Archive