Paper short abstract:

The Fukushima nuclear disaster drastically impacted the lives of people in Iitate village, forcing the evacuation of the entire population, but also bringing unexpectedly generous compensation payments that have made some of the villagers suddenly wealthy. How has the community responded?

Paper long abstract:

Though located directly in the path of the radioactive plume, the village of Iitate lay just outside the 30km evacuation zone, and so was not evacuated until some 80 days after the disaster, when the government reluctantly recognized that radiation levels there were higher than in many districts much closer to the stricken nuclear power plant. This has left lasting questions about the long-term health of the villagers.

Since 2012 the twenty hamlets that constitute Iitate have been divided into three zones - four northerly hamlets have been designated as low-level radiation areas (0-20 mSv/year), fifteen hamlets as mid-level radiation areas (20-50 mSv/year), and just one hamlet, the southernmost hamlet of Nagadoro, as a high-level radiation area (over 50 mSv/year). The whole village is likely to be declared open for repatriation in spring of next year, except for Nagadoro.

The people of Iitate were compulsorily evacuated and so have received substantial compensation from Tokyo Electric Power. Those in Nagadoro, in particular, have received roughly twice as much compensation as those elsewhere in Iitate, and some households have received total compensation in excess of 100 million yen, or $1 million.

Ironically, the large compensation payments have helped to seal the fate of Nagadoro. Most of the 73 households in the hamlet have purchased new houses within Fukushima prefecture - most of them, ironically, in parts of Fukushima from which other people discussed in this panel evacuated. They have started new lives and there is virtually no prospect of more than a handful ever returning to Nagadoro.

The people of Nagadoro still have to face up to the loss of their community and ancestral lands. Meanwhile, their status as well-compensated nuclear nouveaux riches provokes envy, and many Nagadoro people feel it necessary to conceal their background in the communities where they are now living. Discrimination based on fear that they may have been "infected" with radiation now seems a less powerful cause of discrimination than that based on resentment at high compensation payments.

Paper short abstract:

I would like to examine Onagawa-chō in Miyagi Prefecture, Tohoku, and discuss new events developed by young residents, focusing on how they try to pass their memories and experiences on to the next generations, and share information about the disaster with others.

Paper long abstract:

Major earthquakes have occurred all across Japan. In the process of recovery, it is important not only to rebuild facilities and roads, but also to incorporate the residents' wishes into the reconstruction process. Listening to their concerns and acting in accordance with them are very important in order for residents to acclimate themselves to their lives after the earthquake. We should consider how residents handle their situation and how they try to rebuild their lives, and we need to understand their oral history and their efforts to reconstruct.

I would like to examine Onagawa-chō in Miyagi Prefecture, Tohoku, and discuss new events developed by young residents, focusing on how they preserve memories and pass on personal experiences. When the processes of reconstruction are discussed, there is a tendency to look only at the big picture. However, we need to consider the intangible things in the process of rebuilding; the experience of losing family members, losing one's home, the hopes of the residents who remain, and local shared experiences. This means the process of recovering emotionally. The six years it took for residents of Onagawa to reconstruct facilities may seem like a long time, but it is a short time for them to come to terms with the disaster. It is difficult to cope with sadness and loss alone, and so I would like to look at how they share these experiences and deal with them as a community.

People in Onagawa are trying to pass their memories and experiences on to the next generations, and share information about the disaster with others. They have not been able to come to terms with what happened, and so they try to transform their sorrow and pain into something they can share with other residents of Onagawa. These are "common memories": memories created by the young people of Onagawa, based on their cultural and social background, that go beyond individual memories and experiences. They are attempting to pass their culture and history on to the next generations.

Paper short abstract:

After the Fukushima nuclear accident of 2011, radioactively contaminated beef that was sold in supermarkets around Tokyo caused a major scandal. This paper analyzes the public debate about this 'Cesium Scandal' as it is reflected in more than 1000 Japanese BLOG entries using new digital methods.

Paper long abstract:

During the Fukushima nuclear accident beginning on March 11, 2011, a large amount of radioactive material was released into the environment. However, the Japanese government reacted only slowly to control the ensuing radioactive contamination of food stuff. In particular, the sale of beef produced in contaminated areas was effectively prohibited only after beef products containing a dangerously high amount of radioactive Cesium had surfaced in supermarkets around Tokyo. This caused a major scandal in July 2011, destroying faith in the safety of Japanese food and confronting many Japanese consumers with the danger of radioactive contamination of their children and themselves.

The proposed paper analyzes the perception of the 'Cesium Scandal' by the Japanese population as it is reflected in a corpus of more than one-thousand Japanese-language BLOG-entries posted between March and December 2011. For this, a tool from the digital humanities is used to automatically analyze the content of the BLOGs and to visualize the way that the public debate has evolved. The results are then compared with a parallel analysis of the representation of the scandal in the Japanese print media. Among other points, it will be shown that many health and safety concerns of the Japanese population are reflected much more clearly in the BLOG entries than in print media. It will also be shown that these concerns were partly driven by factors that the conventional media excluded from their reporting almost entirely. The paper will end with a discussion of the usefulness of Digital Humanities methods to the analysis of Japanese public discourses.