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Paper short abstract

Based on fieldwork in rural Japan this paper explores how a shrinking community navigates depopulation through the lens of disaster preparedness. In this community, depopulation and disaster risk become entangled and a discussion of one becomes saturated with the other.

Paper long abstract

Japan is among the world’s most disaster-prone countries, yet it is also a global leader in disaster preparedness. From early childhood, residents are socialized into practices of risk awareness through drills, education, and a dense visual landscape of warnings, symbols, and mascots. This paper examines how such preparedness cultures intersect with depopulation discourse in a field site in Kochi Prefecture, where anticipation of the Nankai Trough megaquakes profoundly shapes everyday life. The Nankai earthquakes, recurring roughly every one to two centuries, last struck in 1946 with catastrophic consequences, including a major tsunami, and are widely understood as inevitable though temporally unpredictable.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2025-2026, drawing on semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and archival research, this paper argues that the named and well-known megaquake has become embedded in public consciousness in ways that goes beyond general disaster awareness. In this settlement, tsunami towers, evacuation signage, and multilingual maps produce an environment in which future destruction is continuously anticipated and normalized. This is accompanied by the concept of akarui bōsai, or “bright disaster preparedness,” in which resilience planning is framed as pragmatic and even optimistic.

The paper further explores the intended and unintended consequences of disaster-oriented policies, such as GPS-based property demarcation and post-disaster rebuilding regulations that will inevitably alter spatial configurations. These measures intersect with existing depopulation and vacant housing issues, challenging assumptions about preservation, continuity, and choice. I suggest that the certainty of a specific future disaster might disrupt the illusion that depopulation can be reversed through effort alone, but can also reframe decline and destruction as opportunities for renewal. In doing so, disaster anticipation reshapes local imaginaries of place, inevitability, and the future. This paper contributes to debates on disaster risk, depopulation, and rural futures in aging societies.