Table Of ContentHealth, Wellbeing and Community
Recovery in Fukushima
This book examines the issue of disaster recovery in relation to community
wellbeing and resilience, exploring the social, political, demographic and
environmental changes in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
The contributors reflect on the Fukushima disaster of earthquake, tsunami
and radiation contamination and its impacts on society from an interdisci-
plinary perspective of the social sciences, critical public health and the
humanities. It focuses on four aspects, which form the sections of the work:
• Reflections from the Field
• Living with Risk
• Social Difference and Inequality
• Community Engagement and Wellbeing
The last three sections present research on the long-term consequences of the
disaster on community health and wellbeing. These findings are enhanced
and developed in the ‘Notes from the Field’ section, in which local practitio-
ners from medicine and community recovery reflect on their experiences in
relation to concepts developed in the previous sections.
This work significantly extends the literature on long-term wellbeing fol-
lowing disaster. The case study of Fukushima is a multifaceted process that
illuminates wider issues around post-disaster regeneration in Fukushima.
This problem takes on new importance in the context of COVID-19, includ-
ing direct parallels in the issues of risk measurement, social inequality and
wider wellbeing impacts from which public health disciplines can draw.
Sudeepa Abeysinghe is a health sociologist who works at the intersection of
sociology, science and technology studies, and critical policy studies.
Claire Leppold is researches health and wellbeing in the aftermath of com-
pound disasters, with a focus on the social determinants of health and health
inequalities.
Akihiko Ozaki is a surgical oncologist and public health practitioner based in
Fukushima, Japan.
Alison Lloyd Williams researches children’s citizenship and participation in
the context of disasters and disaster risk management.
Routledge Studies in Hazards, Disaster Risk and Climate
Change
Series Editor: Ilan Kelman, Professor of Disasters and Health
at the Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction (IRDR) and the
Institute for Global Health (IGH), University College London
(UCL)
This series provides a forum for original and vibrant research. It offers con-
tributions from each of these communities as well as innovative titles that
examine the links between hazards, disasters and climate change, to bring
these schools of thought closer together. This series promotes interdisciplin-
ary scholarly work that is empirically and theoretically informed, with titles
reflecting the wealth of research being undertaken in these diverse and excit-
ing fields.
Disasters and Life in Anticipation of Slow Calamity
Perspectives from the Colombian Andes
Reidar Staupe-Delgado
The Invention of Disaster
Power and Knowledge in Discourses on Hazard and Vulnerability
JC Gaillard
Earthquakes and Volcanic Activity on Islands
History and Contemporary Perspectives from the Azores
David Chester, Angus Duncan, Rui Coutinho and Nicolau Wallenstein
Why Vulnerability Still Matters
The Politics of Disaster Risk Creation
Edited by Greg Bankoff and Dorothea Hilhorst
Health, Wellbeing and Community Recovery in Fukushima
Edited by Sudeepa Abeysinghe, Claire Leppold, Akihiko Ozaki
and Alison Lloyd Williams
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.
com/Routledge-Studies-in-Hazards-Disaster-Risk-and-Climate-Change/
book-series/HDC
Health, Wellbeing and
Community Recovery in
Fukushima
Edited by Sudeepa Abeysinghe,
Claire Leppold, Akihiko Ozaki and
Alison Lloyd Williams
First published 2022
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Sudeepa Abeysinghe, Claire
Leppold, Akihiko Ozaki and Alison Lloyd Williams; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of Sudeepa Abeysinghe, Claire Leppold, Akihiko Ozaki and
Alison Lloyd Williams to be identified as the authors of the editorial
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Abeysinghe, Sudeepa, 1985- editor. | Leppold, Claire, editor. |
Ozaki, Akihiko, editor. | Williams, Alison Lloyd, editor.
Title: Health, wellbeing and community recovery in Fukushima /
edited by Sudeepa Abeysinghe, Claire Leppold, Akihiko Ozaki and
Alison Lloyd Williams.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. |
Series: Routledge studies in hazards, disaster risk and climate change |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021059898 (print) | LCCN 2021059899 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032022734 (hbk) | ISBN 9781032022765 (pbk) | ISBN
9781003182665 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Disaster relief--Japan. | Fukushima Nuclear Disaster,
Japan, 2011. | Climatic changes--Japan. | Well-being--Japan.
Classification: LCC HV555.J3 H43 2022 (print) | LCC HV555.J3
(ebook) |
DDC 363.34/80952117--dc23/eng/20220127
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021059898
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021059899
ISBN: 978-1-032-02273-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-02276-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-18266-5 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003182665
Typeset in Times New Roman
by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgements viii
Editors x
List of Contributors xi
1 The Reconstruction of Community and Wellbeing in Fukushima –
Situating the Case within the Field 1
SUDEEPA ABEYSINGHE, AKIHIKO OZAKI, CLAIRE LEPPOLD AND
ALISON LLOYD WILLIAMS
PART I
Reflections from the Field 17
2 Reflections from Frontline Healthcare Workers 19
KATSUKA ONODA AND RIKA SATO
3 Psychiatric Care after the Nuclear Disaster in Fukushima 25
ARINOBU HORI
4 Fukushima Hamadōri (Coastal Area) High School Academy:
Learning and Understanding about Nuclear Disaster with
Fukushima High School Students 29
YASUHIRO TAKAMURA
5 The Increased Disaster-Related Deaths after the Fukushima
Nuclear Disaster and the System for Their Compensation 34
SHIGETA MIMURA
PART II
Living with Risk 41
6 Getting the Measure of Radiation Monitoring in Fukushima,
Ten Years On 43
LOUISE ELSTOW
vi Contents
7 Prioritising Health Risks after the 3.11 Disaster: The Application
of Wellbeing Indicators 60
MICHIO MURAKAMI
8 Commensurability and Post-Disaster Mental Health after 3.11 75
BEN EPSTEIN
PART III
Social Difference and Inequality 97
9 Japan’s Gender Perspective after the Explosions at
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant 99
SUNHEE LEE
10 Social Vulnerability and Inequality in Disasters: Marriage-Migrant
Women’s Experiences in the Tōhoku Region 114
SUNHEE LEE AND SHINYA UEKUSA
11 The Social Amplification of Stigma in the Media after the
Fukushima Disaster 135
MIKIHITO TANAKA
PART IV
Community Engagement and Wellbeing 153
12 Theatres of Resilience: Schoolchildren as Actors in Community
Development in Fukushima 155
ALISON LLOYD WILLIAMS AND AYA GOTO
13 Bonding after Fukushima: The Role of Trust Relationships between
Non-Profit Organisation Volunteers and Disaster Victims in Building
Resilience amidst a Nuclear Catastrophe 171
GIULIA DE TOGNI
14 Fukushima’s Reconstruction after the Nuclear Accident and the
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (1F) Decommissioning
Policy 189
SHUNJI MATSUOKA
15 The Long-term Impact of Disasters and Looking Forward 205
CLAIRE LEPPOLD, ALISON LLOYD WILLIAMS, AKIHIKO OZAKI
AND SUDEEPA ABEYSINGHE
Index 211
Illustrations
Figures
1.1 Map of Fukushima Prefecture with Fukushima Daiichi
Nuclear Power Plant marked ‘X’ 2
1.2 Map of the Tōhoku Region 5
7.1 Risk comparison between psychological distress and
radiation exposure using happy life expectancy (Murakami
et al., 2018). S1: linear regression scenario. S2: exponential
regression scenario. 67
10.1 Number of international marriages in Tōhoku from 1998–2019 117
11.1 The advent pattern of the maps related to the Fukushima
disaster in each newspaper 138
11.2 Trajectories of the ‘Contamination Map’ 139
Tables
7.1 Forms of wellbeing and corresponding questionnaire items
(Murakami et al., 2020) 64
10.1 Migrant women’s community groups (emergent and pre-
existing) in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima
(as of December 2017) 128
14.1 Formation Process of 1F Decommissioning Policy &
Decommissioning Systems 191
14.2 Principles of the Mid-and-Long-Term Roadmap (2019) 192
14.3 Mid-and-Long-Term Roadmap (2019) Milestones 194
14.4 Changes in Milestones in Revisions of the Mid-and-Long-
Term Roadmap 196
14.5 Options for Handling Tritiated Water and Technical Assessment 198
Acknowledgements
This edited collection would not have been possible without the collaboration
and support from many people and organisations. The editors would like to
thank the authors who contributed to each chapter, as well as their collabora-
tors and research participants in Fukushima. We are especially grateful to the
professional authors (Katsuka Onoda, Rika Sato, Arinobu Hori, Yasuhiro
Takamura and Shigeta Mimura) who made the time to contribute to this
book in the midst of their busy nursing, medical, teaching and legal careers.
The editors are also grateful for the support and insights of colleagues who
have helped with particular chapters, concepts or topics. These include
Maggie Mort, Emily Adrion, Sarah Hill, Kevin White, Sean Cowlishaw,
Masaharu Tsubokura and other colleagues who have been so generous with
their time and expertise. The editors would also like to thank Jessica Nakaya,
who translated Japanese chapters into English, and Masatsugu Tanaki for
assisting with the graphic design of the maps in Chapter 1. We also extend
our gratitude to Akihiro Yoshikawa for helping us better understand the
technical process by which the nuclear disaster occurred, as described in
Chapter 1.
This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council
(ESRC) (grant number ES/S013903/1). This funding, for the network ‘Health,
Risk, Disaster (HeaRD): Social Science and Post-Disaster Community
Reconstruction’, allowed the authors in this collection to come together
through key meetings which led to the creation of this book. We are grateful
to the staff at Fukushima Medical University who facilitated the first HeaRD
conference in April 2019 and the Edinburgh University Research Office staff
who assisted with the subsequent HeaRD meeting held in Edinburgh in July
2019. The publication of this book was also supported by the Great Britain
Sasakawa Foundation for a grant (5914) which covered translation of chap-
ters from Japanese to English.
The authors of each chapter also extend gratitude to funders who facili-
tated their work presented in this book. For Chapter 6, Elstow’s work was
assisted by an ESRC stipend as part of the NW Doctoral Training Centre
and the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Summer
Program 2018 (ID SP18107). For Chapter 7, Murakami’s work was partially
funded by a JSPS KAKENHI grant (number JP20H04354). For Chapter 10,
Acknowledgements ix
Lee and Uekusa’s research was partially supported by funding from JSPS
KAKENHI grants (JP15K01908, JP18K01185). For Chapter 11, Tanaka
thanks Tak Yuasa and Yining Fang for their assistance in data collection. For
Chapter 12, Lloyd Williams’s and Goto’s work was supported in part by a
JSPS International Postdoctoral Fellowship in Japan FY2016 (Principal
investigator: ALW), the Program of the Network-type Joint Usage/Research
Center for Radiation Disaster Medical Science FY2018 and FY2019
(Principal investigators: AG and ALW) and the Fund for the Promotion of
Joint International Research (Fostering Joint International Research [B])
from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Grants-in-Aid for
Scientific Research (No. 19KK0060) (Principal investigator: AG). Lloyd
Williams and Goto also thank all members of the research support team in
Fukushima, especially Mrs Satsuki Katsumi and Mr Shigeru Nakano. For
Chapter 13, De Togni’s work was supported by the AHRC scheme London
Arts and Humanities Partnership, and De Togni additionally thanks all
Japanese collaborators and members of the Japanese judiciary system who
shared legal insights.
Thank you to everyone who made this book possible. We hope that this
edited collection will be a useful documentation of the ten years following the
3.11 disaster, and we look forward to seeing what the next ten years will hold
for Fukushima.
