Paper short abstract:

This paper will examine the relations between waste management experts, officials, citizens and civil society groups in the first half of the twentieth century in order to illuminate the role that civil protest had on shaping official attitudes and policies regarding waste management in Japan.

Paper long abstract:

From garbage wars to recycling campaigns, civil society groups and ordinary citizens have been intimately involved in Japan's modern waste management system almost since its inception in the Meiji period. Although at first engineers and waste management officials believed that Japan's various "garbage problems" could be solved through the right technological innovations, by the 1930s the rhetoric of these waste experts had shifted toward expressing the belief that municipal waste management was impossible without the educated cooperation of ordinary citizens. What caused this shift in attitudes? In addition to changes in waste disposal technology, particularly the rise of incineration, the primary factor shaping the opinions of waste management experts and officials was the dramatic increase in citizen protests against waste disposal sites that occurred over the first three decades of the twentieth century.

This paper will examine in-depth the relations between waste management experts, officials, citizens and civil society groups in the first half of the twentieth century using archival materials such as policy planning documents, local government announcements and publications, neighborhood association newsletters, newspaper articles, and newsletters, magazine and journal articles published by civil society organizations and protest organizations. This analysis hopes to illuminate the role that civil protest in particular had on shaping official attitudes and policies regarding waste management in Japan.

Paper short abstract:

The Japanese archipelago was crucial for institutionalizing seismology in the 1880s. This kept giving Japanese seismologists a unique authority within the international scientific community to pursue active roles in science diplomacy and to maintain transnational relationships based on seismicity.

Paper long abstract:

Located on the Pacific Rim, the Japanese archipelago is known as a place subjected to frequent and strong earthquakes. It became one of the first regions monitored by modern seismographs in the late 19th century. Their experience with their seismic archipelago gave Japanese seismologists a unique authority within the international seismological community. This enabled them to foster transnational relations shaped by the seismicity of places and shared interests in earthquake preparedness throughout the 20th century.

The encounter of British mining oyatoi John Milne with the Japanese seismic environment in the 1880s became crucial for institutionalizing seismology as a scientific discipline. Milne developed one of the first modern seismographs, and strived toward the creation of monitoring networks in Japan and around the globe. His Japanese successors, especially Omori Fusakichi, exerted considerable influence through knowledge transfers with other seismic regions in both colonial and inter-imperial context. The development of strong motion seismology in the 1930s, earthquake engineering, and international collaboration for earthquake prediction from the 1960s onwards further cemented Japan's influential status in earthquake science.

The aim of this paper is to expand upon Gregory Clancey's notion of Japan as an "Earthquake Nation" and examine the transnational relations of Japanese seismology under the framework of Science Diplomacy, which has been a rapidly expanding field in the History of Science in the past few years. Japan capitalized on the seismicity of its archipelago and actively used seismology to present itself as a progressive scientific nation inside and outside of diplomatic contexts. At the same time, the study of transnational networks of Japanese seismologists reveals that they connected seismic regions directly, thus contributing a layer of networks shaped by seismicity to science diplomacy.

Paper short abstract:

From looking at various media, I explore the perspectives of women and those who advocated for them to see how the perception of gendered roles was used as a tool to advocate the protection of nature and to further the Japanese environmental movement in the Meiji period and beyond.

Paper long abstract:

The Ashio Copper Mine Incident (Ashio kōdoku jiken 足尾鉱毒事件) is known as the first major pollution disaster in Japan that heightened the understanding about the implications of pollution and led to the first Japanese environmental movement from the 1890s. The topic was unpopular. When a Meiji magazine for women Jogaku zasshi 女學雑誌 (1885-1905) published several texts drawing attention to the issue in 1890, the magazine's editor Iwamoto Yoshiharu 巌本善治 (1863-1942) was reproved and the magazine temporarily suspended. The "Literature on pollution" 鑛毒文學, published in Jogaku zasshi no. 508 (March 2, 1900), was deemed as violating the press regulations (Shinbunshi jōrei 新聞紙条例) of 1875 that forbade unreasonable criticism of politics. The mine was supporting the war effort. Iwamoto's emphasis, however, was on women affected by the pollution becoming unable to produce milk for their babies. While the aftereffects remain, the stories from Meiji live on in the collective memory through a recent interpretation: an NHK drama Ashio kara kita onna 足尾から来た女 that ran in January of 2014, again, narrated the disaster from the perspective of women.

The emphasis of women's suffering in cases of pollution incidents is clear in various types of media. For instance, the female hibakusha, survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, have shared stories about having carried stigmas, unable to marry or have children due to both social pressure as well as physical reasons. Similarly, a movie Odayakana nichijō 穏やかな日常 (2012) depicts the Fukushima nuclear accident from a perspective of a young mother in her plight to protect her son.

In my paper, I explore the perspectives of women and those who advocated for them to see how gender, especially the fact that women are perceived as those who assure the healthy continuation of population by giving birth and raising children, was used as a tool to advocate the protection of nature in the Meiji period and beyond. I address the types of media used and the arguments made to illustrate how women's gendered roles were interpreted and applied to further the Japanese environmental movement.