This volume is a critical interrogation of the concept, meaning and experience of disaster in 21st-century Japan. Throughout the chapters, a central theme and guiding theoretical perspective is the recognition of the human element in disasters. The evolution of disaster studies in Japan over the past three decades—and the contextual disaster policy changes and societal processes—shows that the empirical terrain for studying disasters is changing, animating the high interest in the sociology of disaster as an interdisciplinary field.
This volume is a critical interrogation of the concept, meaning and experience of disaster in 21st-century Japan. Throughout the chapters, a central theme and guiding theoretical perspective is the recognition of the human element in disasters.
Introduction. Disaster Studies in Japan Part 1: Lenses
1. Coping with
the Inexplicable: Hjki and Premodern Japanese Perceptions of Disaster
2.
Fighting the Morbid Fear of Fire in Tokyo, 18721945
3. Disaster Research
and Practice: The Development of the Field since the Great Hanshin-Awaji
Earthquake (1995)
4. Japanese Cities, Disaster, and Urban Sociology
5. The
Evolution of Disaster Education in Japan
6. Disability and Disaster
7. Aging
and Disaster Resilience
8. Women and Children in Disasters
9. Disasters
without Borders: The Coronavirus Pandemic, Global Climate Change, and the
Ascendancy of Gradual Onset Disasters
10. Japans Disaster Culture and Local
Communities
11. Disaster Medical System in Japan
12. Businesses and Disaster:
Japanese Companies Responses to Vulnerability through Corporate Disaster
Prevention and BCP
13. International Students and Disasters Part 2: Human
Activities
14. Big Data-Driven Disaster Management and Resilience
15. Its
Who You Know: How Social Networks Help Cities Rebuild with Renewables after
Disaster
16. Social Capital Differences in Disaster Resilience: A Comparison
between China and Japan
17. Stronger Together: The Critical Role of Bridging
and Linking Social Capital in Evacuation Outcomes
18. Community Preparedness
and Emergency Response for Natural Hazard-Triggered Technological Accidents
19. Disaster Risk Management and Formal Non-Governmental Actors in Japan:
Knowledge and Learning-Oriented Initiatives of Post-3.11 NGO/NPO Networks
20.
Networks of Non-Profit Organizations in Japans Disaster Recovery
21.
Emergency Response to 2020 Kumamoto Floods amid COVID-19
22. The Evolution of
Japans ODA Disaster Response, with Special Reference to Indonesia and the
Philippines
23. Japans Disaster Risk Reduction Diplomacy and the Sendai
Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction Part 3: Disaster Experiences
24.
Storytelling and the Arts as Tools in Disaster Risk Education: Tohoku
Universitys Kataritsugi and the Stories of 3.11
25. COVID-19 and SDGs:
Civil Society Perspectives
26. Interfaith Chaplaincy Movement in Japan
Precipitated by the Tsunami in 2011
27. Symbolic Recovery, Intellectuals, and
External Supporters in Local Reconstruction
28. Risks Confronting Buddhist
Temples in Responding to COVID-19
29. Women in Faith-Based Disaster Response
to the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquakes
30. Negative Social Support During the
COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences among Mothers of Infants and/or Young Children
in Japan
31. Mobilized Mothers Triumph: Social Movement Protest to the Triple
Disaster
32. Women and Resilience in Japan: The Role of Kirikiris Fujinkai
Leaders in Disaster Management
33. The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake and the
Migrant Community in Kobe
34. Resilience in the Everyday: Older People in
Disaster Relocation
35. Shuri Castle: Okinawa as a Site of Vulnerability and
Resilience
36. Loss, Place, and Rituals: Community Commemoration in Iwate
Prefecture after 3.11
37. The Importance of Remembering Public Transportation
Accidents in Japan
38. Hiroshimas Forgotten Voices: Resilience in Hibakusha
Video Testimony and Memorialization
39. Compassionate Grounds: Contemporary
Artists Responses to the Ongoing Recovery of Thoku
40. Popular Culture of
Disaster: Developments Post-3.11 Appendix 1: List of Disasters 1945-2025
Appendix 2: Negative Social Support Experiences Study Conclusion
Paola Cavaliere is Senior Research Fellow, University of Milan. She holds a BA in Japanese Language and Literature (University of Venice, Italy) and received a double PhD degree in East Asian Studies (University of Sheffield, UK) and Law (Thoku University, Japan). Her research interests are in the area of gender, religious civil society and disaster in Japan. She is the author of Promising Practices: Women Volunteers in Japanese Religious Civil Society (2015) and has published extensively on a gendered approach to Japanese faith-based volunteering and disaster, including the COVID-19 pandemic.
Junko Otani, DDS, MPH, MS, PhD, is a Professor at the Graduate School of Human Sciences at Osaka University. She also serves as Regional Director of the East Asian Center for Academic Initiatives (Shanghai Office) of Osaka University. She has worked for the World Bank and the World Health Organization. She was awarded the Royal Society of New Zealand fellowship to conduct research in Christchurch at the University of Canterbury in 2013 and the Australian Academy of Science fellowship for School of Population and Global Health, Centre for Disaster Management and Public Safety of the University of Melbourne in 2015. Her publications include Older People in Natural Disasters (2010), and Reconstructing Resilient Communities after the Wenchuan Earthquake: Disaster Recovery in China (2023).
