Gender, Empowerment, and Community: The Role of Self-Help Networks Among Female Evacuees Post-Fukushima

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident led to a massive evacuation. As of May 2011, approximately 170,000 people had been evacuated. However, even 13 years after the accident, as of March 2024, approximately 29,000 people are still living far from their homes. Evacuations can be broadly categorized as mandatory or voluntary, with voluntary evacuees often facing limited public support for housing and livelihood assistance.

This research focuses on female voluntary evacuees who participated in self-help communities in their 'New Hometowns', and the activities of the self-help communities. The study utilized a qualitative research approach, conducting semi-structured interviews to collect life stories from female voluntary evacuees and involved participant observation of the self-help communities' activities.

This research analyzes the post-disaster lives and transformations of affected women from the perspectives of feminist geography, women's studies, and disaster sociology.

The results of the study indicate that some of the female voluntary evacuees who participated in self-help communities experienced a transformation in their identity as disaster victims, gained empowerment through their involvement, and navigated the challenges brought by the life of evacuation. However, the realization of this empowerment was limited and conditional. This empowerment was closely associated with the evacuees' own educational level and marital status, the social capital provided by these communities, and the broader changes in gender equality taking place in Japanese society.