Re-Thinking of Community Based Pre-Disaster Activities; The Problem of Social Divisions in the Case of Japan

As the lessons learned about local initiative of disaster preparedness, this paper will be re-thinking the role of local community mainly focusing on the case of Japan recent two decades and especially based on the original research findings about neighborhood association “chonai-kai” and “making secure-and-safe community　activity” after the Great Kobe Earthquake of 1995. The questions are 1) why and how previous disasters and terrorism have changed local communities’ disaster preparedness and risk perception nationwide, 2) how the local office promoted risk mitigation at the level of local community and 3) whether they worked out or not during the tsunami disaster efficiently.

The findings are below. The lessons from Kobe are that 1) the local communities are one of the best social capitals which are worked as emergent aiding and caring system each other and so 2) the construction of “chonai-kai” based disaster preparedness have become main important program of the disaster planning nationwide. For the “chonai-kai”, the problem of risk became more and more main subject of their activities. 3) This trend was connected to nationwide anxiety and “making secure-and-safe community activity” after terrorism using chemical substance by cult in 1995 Japan. But 4) the initiative of the activities is not belong to “chonai-kai” or local community itself and 5) the social division within local community itself is the problem such as the isolation of disabled people or other minorities, which the Tsunami disaster revealed in 2011. This problem is evident in the case of unequal gender/ethnic relationships in communities and reflected in the local pre-disaster preparedness.

The discussion is 1) how the disaster studies take up the problem of social division in the theme of local community at global level and 2) how the relationships of the nations and local citizens in the disaster planning should be.