[Special Feature: 10 Years Since 3.11] Recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake from the Perspective of Disaster Sociology

Image: Beside the torii gate of Isuzu Shrine, built on high ground in Kobuchihama, stand tsunami monuments from the Meiji and Showa eras inscribed with warnings against living in low-lying areas (Photographed February 2021).

Kobuchihama, Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture. In this fishing village on the Oshika Peninsula, at the southern tip of Tohoku's rias coastline, the construction of a seawall has now begun. The landlady of a local inn, whose selling point was the view of the sunset over the sea, lamented and expressed anger that a seawall was only now being built in front of her establishment, and that the dust and noise from the construction (amidst the COVID-19 pandemic) made it impossible to even open windows for ventilation.

It has been nearly 10 years since the Great East Japan Earthquake. Following the five-year "Concentrated Reconstruction Period" and the subsequent five-year "Reconstruction and Revitalization Period," the government decided to extend the term of the Reconstruction Agency by 10 years to continue various projects, citing that many projects remain unfinished and support for prolonged life as an evacuee is necessary (Cabinet decision on December 20, 2019).

Exactly one year ago, on the morning of March 8, 2020, NHK's "Sunday Discussion" was scheduled to hold a debate on the current state of recovery heading into the 10th year. However, the program content was suddenly changed and split into "(First Half) How to Face the New Virus / (Second Half) 9 Years Since the Earthquake: Recovery Now," halving the time for recovery discussion and pushing it to the end. Public interest had shifted from the status of recovery to the COVID-19 pandemic. This brought to mind the "fading" of memory and interest, the "temperature difference" between North and South, and the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway that occurred following the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake a quarter-century ago.

In this discussion program, regarding the situation heading into the 10th year, it was first shown that the construction of disaster recovery public housing and recovery roads was progressing. Subsequently, results from a recent survey revealed that 62% of people in Iwate Prefecture and 55% in Miyagi Prefecture "still feel like disaster victims," highlighting a significant gap between the completion of public works and the "actual feeling of recovery." Seeing this, Teruaki Murozaki (Professor at University of Hyogo and first President of the Japan Society for Disaster Recovery and Revitalization) likened the current situation to a landing on a staircase, calling it a "recovery plateau." While the government speaks of the completion status of budgeted projects, this is vastly disconnected from the sense of recovery felt by the victims.

The Japan Society for Disaster Recovery and Revitalization, in which I participate, has organized the second phase of the "Thinking About What Recovery Is" study group over the past two years to advance discussions (please refer to the Society's website).

The society was established at the end of fiscal 2007 following the comprehensive 10-year verification of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake by various sectors. During its first two years, it launched the first phase of the "Thinking About What Recovery Is" study group. In the 10 years following Hanshin, non-urban disasters occurred frequently, and it was not appropriate to speak of recovery solely through the completion of public works bearing the name of recovery (Recovery Urban Planning Projects = Land Readjustment Projects + Urban Redevelopment Projects, etc.). Therefore, work was undertaken to re-examine what recovery entails, who does what, and the interpretations and efforts across different eras and regions. Just as those discussions had progressed to a certain point, the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred, and society members became involved in locations they had connections with. In my case, it was Kobuchihama, mentioned at the beginning.

In the early 1990s, while I was a graduate student at Mita, I participated in the editing of the "History of Miyako City (Vol. 2) Folklore Edition" during a seminar led by Professor Hitoshi Miyake, which gave me the opportunity to write about the "Folklore of Tsunami." At that time, the professor introduced me to a classic of tsunami recovery research, "Tsunami and Villages" (written by Yaichiro Yamaguchi, Koshunkaku Shobo, 1943), which I carried into the field and read deeply. Yamaguchi noted that he began his inspection from Kobuchihama and moved north. Over the next quarter-century, I occasionally walked the beaches of Sanriku following the descriptions in that book, tracing the recovery process unique to Tohoku. For me, Kobuchihama became the starting point and a place of personal connection for my recovery research (for details, see Oyane, 2015).

In disaster area surveys, "hit-and-run" style research—conducting surveys just for academic achievement and then leaving—is strictly cautioned against. The society holds "Kurumaza (Roundtable) Talks" where we sit down and talk through the night with local victims. Every year, we hold "Roundtable Conferences" where victims who worked tirelessly for recovery in various past disaster areas across the country are invited to share and discuss their experiences and knowledge. This is a process of "giving" the achievements and know-how gained through receiving (taking) support to the next disaster area. However, participants often comment that there is a relationship of "give & given" that transcends "give & take." They say that when they are able to properly verbalize their experiences (to communicate them), the feelings behind their struggles finally make sense, and they feel a sense of recovery for the first time.

For victims to feel recovery, they need the time and opportunity for a process of properly verbalizing and coming to terms with their experiences. If recovery is considered complete simply because civil engineering works like high-ground relocations and seawalls or the construction of disaster recovery public housing are finished, there are still many victims who are not—or cannot be—satisfied. In the second phase of the "Thinking About What Recovery Is" study group, we considered this point. According to the summary by Hideyuki Kobayashi (Lecturer at Meiji University, in charge of "Sociology of Disasters" at Mita this academic year), it is roughly as follows (Kobayashi, 2020a, 2020b).

Since modernization, Japan has experienced numerous disasters and has formed policy schemes to confront them to a certain extent. These have been passed down to the present in a path-dependent manner and practiced as active public investment and urban infrastructure redevelopment (as part of the welfare state experiment). In this context, "public welfare" has been prioritized while restricting fundamental human rights, forming a so-called "recovery model" (also referred to as disaster recovery paternalism). At the level of residents in disaster areas, the word "recovery"—spoken by those involved, including their resolve to live on that land again after the disaster—is co-opted and overwritten by recovery policies as public works. There, "recovery" appears as a policy indicating benefits for the majority in the sense of public welfare, standing as an irresistible "correctness" before the residents. Over this, internationally authorized discourse and the UN slogan for disaster recovery goals, "Build Back Better," are layered. This acts as a path for introducing what might be called "Shock Doctrine" (disaster capitalism), while the uniquely Japanese discourse of "Creative Reconstruction" resonates as a beautiful term that masks this "Shock Doctrine."

On the other hand, through research practices at various levels of the Great East Japan Earthquake, many instances of the actual state of resilience and the toughness of victims have been identified and confirmed alongside their struggles. This is a mechanism where external natural conditions of a major disaster are incorporated into internal systems of cultural and social requirements to create creative destruction, allowing individuals to choose their own destruction and restoration to adapt to the calamity. These cases have been observed, for example, in efforts within small fishing villages affected by the tsunami (Oyane, 2015). There, in order to regain and rebuild their lives, the responsibility "found through deliberation in the settlement as something 'one owes to oneself'" (Saito, 2018) was observed—not as a theory of self-responsibility, but as a fact grasped from clinical experience at the disaster site and the narratives of those involved. The second phase of the "Thinking About What Recovery Is" study group recognized that while victims engage in the practice of rebuilding their lives with such resolve and understanding, the right of governance by the disaster-affected community—the direct stakeholders who make the "life" of those involved possible—should be further acknowledged.

The true nature of recovery emerges precisely in places where these experiences of the life-rebuilding process (recovery) are discussed and shared from multiple perspectives.

Centering on disaster recovery theory—a research practice that refines methodologies (data) and concepts (predicates) to represent events while participating in the "feeling of recovery" held by victims and the process of building a satisfying recovery process—the society's Recovery Support Committee has been working on "Disaster Case Management" for the past few years.

This is a system to provide necessary support to each victim by understanding their individual disaster and living situations, planning a combination of various support measures accordingly, and having a team of experts support each victim. A group of lawyers belonging to the Japan Federation of Bar Associations' Disaster Recovery Support Committee has played a central role in backing the activities of the society's Recovery Support Committee (Tsukui, 2020).

Some local governments have recognized the importance of such efforts and have begun institutionalizing them. In Sendai City, this system is called the "Victim Life Rebuilding Acceleration Program" and is part of the work of the Reconstruction Bureau's Life Rebuilding Promotion Office. Tottori Prefecture has amended its Crisis Management Ordinance to include Disaster Case Management. Similar system deployments are taking place in Ofunato City and Kitakami City in Iwate Prefecture, and Natori City in Miyagi Prefecture. Furthermore, these movements are being seen not only in earthquake recovery but also in areas affected by subsequent floods (such as Iwaizumi Town, Iwate Prefecture) (Tsukui, 2017).

Even where not institutionalized to this extent, there are many cases where needs assessment through door-to-door visits and the dispatch of expert teams have been realized effectively and substantially through past disaster volunteer activities and loose cooperation on the ground. Let's look at one example (Tokozawa and Oyane, 2019, 2020).

In Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, Akiko Iwamoto of the local paper "Ishinomaki Fukko Kizuna Shimbun," which continues to convey the voices of people living in temporary and recovery public housing, conducts reporting and delivery (face-to-face interviews and hand-delivery serve as monitoring activities and their recording/listing). There are also efforts by the Ishinomaki-based "Japan Car Sharing Association" and "Mobility Support Rera," which provide support to ensure the daily movements and outings of these subjects as a matter of human dignity. Dr. Jun Osana (former Director of Ishinomaki Municipal Hospital Kaisei Temporary Clinic / Director of Ishinomaki City Comprehensive Care Center) recognizes and utilizes the medical and socio-ethical significance of such mobility support, continuing to provide home-visit nursing for former residents even after temporary housing was removed, practicing the philosophy of extending medical and nursing care outside the hospital (the basic teaching of Florence Nightingale: the extension of medical and nursing care through the coordination of health, welfare, and medical services). On the side of the recovery public housing that receives this support, the activities of a new residents' association organization (Ishinomaki Jichiren, led by Chairman Takashi Masuda) were established to inherit the monitoring history and systems from the temporary housing period, placing particular importance on the liaison (cooperation) established during that time. These groups contact each other daily, exchange information, and continue their activities as a loose network.

Cases have begun to emerge where the recipients of the various support services mentioned above are gradually participating in the recovery administration side from these life-rebuilding volunteer teams.

Without such a network of voluntary activities, they might have fallen through the cracks of existing recovery administration menus and never become new supporters themselves. Elderly people who once sat silently in temporary housing waiting to be spoken to are now behind the wheel, cheerfully making rounds to check on others. Victims who were positioned as objects of recovery are turning into supporters and, furthermore, becoming subjects in the creation of new recovery systems. Among these new grassroots leaders, some are gaining a place as members with new potential indispensable to recovery administration.

In a small fishing village devastated by the tsunami, Naomi Sato, a housewife who served as a contact for external support in a position similar to a neighborhood association's women's division, worked tirelessly to rebuild her life with her remaining children and parents after losing her husband. Following advice from an NGO that came to help, she established the "NPO We Are One Kitakami" and began working on various local restoration and recovery projects and related annual events (such as preparations for reopening beaches). It is said that "a bride who came to the fishing village stood at the front and spoke up in the village for the first time," but her frank personality and careful communication style were recognized. She became involved in building consensus for recovery public works (as a mediator and translator of the system for residents rather than the project side) and became a member of the founding general meeting of the "Ishinomaki Citizen Public Interest Activity Liaison Council" (formerly "Ishinomaki NPO Liaison Council"). Because various NGOs from around the world gathered in Ishinomaki after this earthquake, diverse know-how was transplanted, and women like Ms. Sato, clad in those mantles (armor = theoretical armament), have emerged at local disaster sites. The hegemony of the recovery system is gradually being reorganized.

Looking closely at the sites of recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake, such new events come into view one after another. However, these may just be cases we happen to encounter that are going well. Nevertheless, if we can explore appropriate cases, categorize and generalize them, and unravel the mechanisms of what combination of premises and conditions gives birth to such events, we will be able to pass that grammar on to the next disaster site.

We students of sociology have just embarked on deciphering such mechanisms (the regional optimal solution for recovery) by forming a group with a large-scale Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research. We are focusing on four keywords: resilience, sustainability, empowerment, and well-being (Kuroda, 2021).

Is there a flexible capacity to respond to disasters (resilience: restoration and recovery)? Is that society sustainable? Are so-called socially vulnerable people appropriately included in recovery and the political processes that envision it? Is a "sense of us" being fostered through participation in such social processes? We intend to discuss recovery from multiple perspectives on a different plane from the formation of resilient social infrastructure through the promotion of public civil engineering works. The challenge of sociological recovery research has only just begun.

Hideyuki Kobayashi, 2020a, "Development and Achievements of the 'Continuous Workshop on Thinking About What Recovery Is'—What Kind of Thing is 'Recovery'?" Journal of the Japan Society for Disaster Recovery and Revitalization, No. 15

Hideyuki Kobayashi, 2020b, "A Study on the Implications of 'Disaster Recovery'" Journal of the Japan Society for Disaster Recovery and Revitalization, No. 15

Yoshihiko Kuroda, 2021, "Proposal on How to Proceed with Future Research" (Jan 19, 2021, KAKEN Project ZOOM Meeting Material: 2019-23 Scientific Research A = "Comprehensive Study on the Regional Optimal Solution for Recovery from Large-scale Disasters")

Jun Oyane, 2015, "Resilience of a Small Beach," in Shinji Shimizu et al. (eds.), New Humans, New Society: Recreating the Story of Recovery, Kyoto University Press

Makoto Saito, 2018, : Satisfaction and Responsibility in a Non-Zero-Risk Society, Keiso Shobo

Shinichiro Tokozawa and Jun Oyane, 2019, 2020, "Stakeholders in the Disaster Mitigation Cycle and the Reality of Pre-disaster Recovery Efforts (I)(II)" Monthly Report of the Institute of Social Sciences, Senshu University, No. 672, 684

Susumu Tsukui, 2017, "Support for Nuclear Evacuees and Disaster Case Management" Disaster Recovery Studies, Vol. 9

Susumu Tsukui, 2020, Disaster Case Management Guidebook, Godo Shuppan