Paper short abstract:

In order to explore the learning process in the aftermath of a disaster causing multi-dimensional social shifts, this study will deploy Fukushima case study research with multiple disciplinary perspectives and paradigms from memory studies, crisis management and industrial safety fields.

Paper long abstract:

Disasters are complex events, and even when classified as natural and unique (assuming that it is most difficult to learn from such), in most cases they are associated with the vulnerability of society, so they become "human-caused" since we are not prepared to cope with critical events. The impact of disasters is multilevel, multi-scale, multi-directional and highly complex in which a number of social, ecological, organizational, and political factors interact, often in an unexpected way. While most disaster studies focus on the immediate disaster response, this research will take a complex systems approach in order to analyze how different social and organizational responses interact in the post-disaster recovery phase, with posing the main questions: how the recovery impacts the vulnerability and resilience of people, and what, if anything, can be learned from disasters? Our case study will be the triple earthquake-tsunami-nuclear disaster occurred in Japan on March 11, 2011. While the nuclear disaster is still ongoing and poses a threat with unforeseeable consequences, it has accelerated a number of conservative trends in Japanese politics and reopened debates about what the future of Japan may look like. More than seven decades after Japan's defeat, the triple disaster brings back the old memories and reveals that Japan's postwar history is anything but uniform understanding of the nation's past.