Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the challenges and the opportunities presented to anthropologists working in disaster research centres. Bordering reflexive ethnography, the author examines his own experience in an interdisciplinary and international disaster institute born out of the Great East Japan Disaster.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the challenges and opportunities presented to anthropologists working within the context of disaster studies and practices. Anthropology is by nature a self-reflexive discipline (Goodman 2000). Since the 1970s, social anthropologists are often asked by their peers to reflect upon their personal and cultural background to understand better their own bias. Confessional and reflexive anthropologies are two of the genres that came out of this trends. However, this exercise is executed often within the confinement of and for anthropology itself. In contrast, this paper discusses the opportunities and the hurdles faced by anthropologists working outside the discipline. The author examines his own experience as a researcher of an interdisciplinary and international disaster research centre born out of the Great East Japan Disaster. Furthermore, possibly due to the fact that the centre results from the specific socio-cultural and historical context of the Great East Japan Disaster, its research activities and its researchers are primarily devoted towards the prevention of the impact of natural disasters minimising human and material loss. Attempting to respond to this demand through interdisciplinary and international collaborations, the anthropologist often becomes 'lost in translations'. Looking at both the positive and negative outcomes of these tensions, this paper reflects on the possible to the field contributions of anthropology to disaster studies and vice-versa as well as their future engagements.