The Japanese Way of Coping with Vulnerability: Divisions Among Lay-People after the Great East Japan Earthquake

In Japanese society, in the discourses on ecological risks and health risks, we are all included in the terms mankind, global citizens, the nation, and consumers, all of whom bear responsibility for the earth or body in the future. There are tacit premises such as scientific correctness and rational choice that we should obey. We are expected to be good citizens. However, there is also the risk that discourse will lead to divisions among lay-people. By clarifying how the Japanese judge risk and make decisions when facing their fears in everyday life, we can see the divisions in society brought about by those decisions. This study involved a qualitative investigation based on interviews with various groups such as mother activists who aim to protect their children from radioactivity, volunteers who evacuated people from Fukushima, people who collect and dispense scientific information through SNS, people who are disinterested, and so on. Risk was what primarily divided my interviewees. For example, some people reported that they could not speak of their fears of things such as radioactivity because they wanted to maintain good relationships with others. Additionally, many people do not trust mass media reports and government announcement and thus they must decide for themselves what to do or whom to trust. For these respondents, preference was an important factor when they needed to judge which scientific discourse is correct. We can find many divisions related to many decisions and judgments, such as what or whom to trust, what media to use, what to eat, and where to live. By discussing why and how people are divided, and what drives people’s emotional connections to each other, I suggest ways to resolve these divisions.