Introduction

Abstract

Over the past two decades, Japanese society has been shaken by a series of disasters and traumatic events that are still having serious repercussions across a range of institutions and communities. This volume focuses on the diverse responses to the natural and human-made disasters of 1995 and 2011. The fact that the editors and most of the contributors lived through one or both of these disasters means that we have shared the experience of “social crisis” with many of those individuals and groups considered in this volume. The extent of the problems associated with the most recent disasters—the inadequacy of the government responses to the needs of local survivors, the widespread fear over food safety and health risks due to ongoing radiation leaks, and concerns over the current government’s plans to restart the nuclear plants and revise the Constitution—has motivated some of our collaborators to become personally involved in a range of activities, including relief work, cleanup operations, social protest, and political engagement. The contributors to this volume, in short, are not detached observers but are personally involved in efforts to address a range of problems and issues in post-disaster Japan.