The Nexus of Human and Non-Human Movements, Changing Ecosystem, and Social Policies and Practices Following the Great East Japan Disaster:  Participatory Analysis through Photovoice

Yoshihama, Mieko

Drawing on the PhotoVoice Project, a 13-year longitudinal participatory action research project, this contribution examines the nexus of post-disaster movements of human and non-human, environmental substances, and their mutually constitutive relations with social policies and socioculturally rooted practices. The project began in 2011 in collaboration with women’s NGOs shortly after the Great East Japan Disaster, a cascade of massive earthquakes, tsunamis, and nuclear accidents.

Using PhotoVoice methodologies and community engagement, the project places women affected by the disaster at the center of inquiry. Across 10 sites, over 65 women have engaged in repeated photo-taking and small group discussions and created “voices,” many of which reflect ongoing collective analyses of the government, opportunists, communities, and society at large.

Members’ photographs and narratives illustrate complex movements of not only people but also animals, plants, water, air, soil, along with pollutants and contaminants.

Residents of governmentally designated evacuation areas were ordered to move. Many from outside those areas, especially children and mothers, also evacuated fearing radioactive contamination. Classified as “voluntary” evacuees, they received little assistance from the repatriation-promoting government.

In addition to survivors evacuating, cremated remains of the deceased moved. Forced or not, alive or dead, people moved multiple times.

In some severely affected areas, along with residents, the city hall, its functions and staff, relocated. This created an interesting twist on the notion that all disasters are local, reminding us that the local is not standstill.

Polluted air moved across the line that separated governmentally designated evacuation zones from non-evacuation zones. Contaminated soils were piled up by the roadside and doorsteps for a protracted period; slowly most, but not all, have been moved to temporary storage locations.

Weaving through members’ photographs and narratives, this contribution highlights interactive relations among human movements, changing ecosystems, and social policies and socioculturally-rooted practices.