RAPID: Disasters, Resilience, and Vulnerability of Fishing Communities in Post-Tsunami Japan

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Dr. Bonnie J McKay (Rutgers University) and Dr. Satsuki Takahashi (Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo) will undertake joint research on the rebuilding efforts in Japanese coastal fishing towns damaged by the recent earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear power crisis. The focus of the research will be on how combined natural and human disasters affect community responses. Previous research on the relationships between disasters, vulnerability, and resilience have led in different directions, depending on whether the disasters are understood as caused by human or natural agency. In these accounts, natural disasters encourage communities to work together to develop better systems in the future, while human-made problems, such as air and water pollution, disproportionally affect vulnerable communities and limit their ability to rebuild. Building upon and contributing to social scientific theories on resilience, vulnerability, and nature-culture relationships, this project will investigate the cultural and political outcomes of dual (natural and human-caused) disasters. The research will comprise historical and ethnographic fieldwork, including archival research, open-ended and semi-structured interviews, and participant observation, in two Japanese fishing towns for which the researchers have baseline data.This research is being supported through NSF's Rapid Response Research (RAPID) program, which is used for projects having severe urgency with regard to availability of or access to data, facilities or specialized equipment, including quick-response research on natural or anthropogenic disasters and similar unanticipated events. By addressing the responses in coastal Japan over five months shortly after the disaster, with follow-up research several months later, this project will be sensitive to any changes that may occur as time passes. It will investigate early and middle-term responses to the extraordinary disaster as a way to shed light on the complex relationships among "natural" and "human" hazards, resilience, and vulnerability, offering important lessons for researchers and policymakers.