Women Speaking up for Fukushima then and now: video oral narrative research


Organized by Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture Collaborative Research Unit

*Digital Social Science and Oral Narrative Research Unit*


When the triple disasters occurred, everyone was affected as land, communities, families, and confidences were broken apart. Many women felt that in the aftermath, it fell disproportionately on them to not only cope with the consequences of the disaster, but also to speak out in a time when many men did not--or could not. For some, this moment of rupture was also one of possibility--to see and name the significance of what is often obscured by the layering of social relations, political expediency, and capital accumulation--that is, daily life. In the months and years that followed, we saw that women were often the most forceful and articulate voices in the anti-nuclear debates, but also it was often women who mounted larger critiques of environmental degradation and state censorship across and beyond Japan. But more often, women, like men, addressed more local concerns of their own communities, families, and children, situations where they were most invested and where they had most to lose, in speaking up. These situations are often the most difficult to raise your voice in, especially when that voice had been chronically marginalized even before the disasters. Our panels look at the dynamics of speaking up then and now.


Each presentation rests on previous research done in post-311. Earlier in 2021, the researchers went back to re-interview some of the women, as they reflected on their previous activism and tell us about shifts in their patterns of political engagement today. The presenters are all contributing members to the Voices of Tohoku Project (https://tohokukaranokoe.org/ <https://tohokukaranokoe.org/>) at Sophia University, an oral narrative project of more than 500 hours of video interviews collected from 2011 to 2016, and they will be drawing on this video archive to show clips of our narrators.


Introductory remarks: *David H. Slater*

"/Intimacy of Risk and Absence of Political Engagement - Mothers Living in Fukushima and Their Quest to Normality/" /*Maya Houser*

"/Pushing against gender and social norms: local women's groups in Fukushima after 3/11/" /*Rebecca Milner*

"/Japanese society and women's activism: Mothers Against War and their reflections after 5 years of activism/" /*Ana María Liceras Garrido*and*Nguyen Phuoc Quy Tuong*

"/Militant Women's Post-3.11 Politics: Women From Fukushima Against Nuclear Power/" /*Satsuki Uno*

Discussion:*Robin O'Day*


*May 29, 2021
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*10:00 AM JST*

*On Zoom*

Program and Presentation Abstracts (PDF)

https://7b912aaa-2400-46c3-9847-666028c2ab29.filesusr.com/ugd/2edff9_6074c08e4db047ee95f5117a51c4c4cc.pdf

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This talk is organized by David H. Slater (FLA, Sophia University) and Robin O'Day (North Georgia University)