Volunteer Activities in the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake and their middle/long-term Impact

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Activities of disaster relief volunteers after 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake were studied focusing on three different types of volunteer groups/organizations, (1)groups without professional expertise, (2)groups with professional expertise, and (3)organizations that coordinated activities of many volunteer groups.(1) A total of 704 groups/organizations were investigated concerning their origins and activities. It was found that about 30% among them were newly emerged after the quake while the rest were formed from groups/organizations that had been already working before the quake. It was elucidated that both newly emerged groups and existing groups in the affected area were involved in relief activities, being supported by mainly existing groups that came from outside of the area.(2) Intensive case studies were carried out regarding such professional experts as medical doctors/nurses, regional planers/civil engineers, workers in cooperative organizations, condominium developers, and experts on transportation. Activities after the quake were documented and a guiding principle for the future was suggested for each professional expert.(3) Three volunteer organizations that emerged after the quake and were involved in coordination among many volunteer groups in Kobe, Ashiya, and Nishinomiya cities were investigated concerning their networking processes among groups and collaboration processes with local government organizations. National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (NVOAD) that was established in 1978 in the US was examined to help develop a guiding principle for coordination among volunteer groups in disaster situations.Materials collected in field work and intensive case studies in the present study were theoretically discussed from the viewpoint of social representations theory, a new concept of public, ethnomethodology, networking organizations theory, and action-research oriented group dynamics.