Handbook of Disaster Studies in Japan

Introduction. Disaster Studies in Japan

Paola Cavaliere and Junko Otani

Part 1: Lenses

1. Coping with the “Inexplicable”: Hōjōki and Premodern Japanese Perceptions of Disaster

Haruko Wakabayashi

2. Fighting the “Morbid Fear” of Fire in Tokyo, 1872–1945

Steven Wills

3. Disaster Research and Practice: The Development of the Field since the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake (1995)

Rinpei Miura

4. Japanese Cities, Disaster, and Urban Sociology

Wesley Cheek

5. The Evolution of Disaster Education in Japan

Yusuke Toyoda

6. Disability and Disaster

Tadashi Yasuda and Toru Shibata

7. Aging and Disaster Resilience

Hiroshi Ueda

8. Women and Children in Disasters

Junko Otani

9. Disasters without Borders: The Coronavirus Pandemic, Global Climate Change, and the Ascendancy of Gradual Onset Disasters

Katsuya Yamori and James D. Goltz

10. Japan’s Disaster Culture and Local Communities

Yoshiyuki Yama

11. Disaster Medical System in Japan

Jing Li

12. Businesses and Disaster: Japanese Companies’ Responses to Vulnerability through Corporate Disaster Prevention and BCP

Takuzo Osugi

13. International Students and Disasters

Yuwen Gao

Part 2: Human Activities

14. Big Data-Driven Disaster Management and Resilience

Yuya Shibuya

15. It’s Who You Know: How Social Networks Help Cities Rebuild with Renewables after Disaster

Timothy Fraser

16. Social Capital Differences in Disaster Resilience: A Comparison between China and Japan

Yixuan Wang

17. Stronger Together: The Critical Role of Bridging and Linking Social Capital in Evacuation Outcomes

Timothy Fraser

18. Community Preparedness and Emergency Response for Natural Hazard-Triggered Technological Accidents

Nobuhito Ohtsu, Ana Maria Cruz, Yuko Araki, Akihiko Hokugo, and Hyejeong Park

19. Disaster Risk Management and Formal Non-Governmental Actors in Japan: Knowledge and Learning-Oriented Initiatives of Post-3.11 NGO/NPO Networks

Kamila Szczepanska

20. Networks of Non-Profit Organizations in Japan’s Disaster Recovery

Hiromi Akiyama

21. Emergency Response to 2020 Kumamoto Floods amid COVID-19

Yasuhiro Ueshima and Takeshi Komino

22. The Evolution of Japan’s ODA Disaster Response, with Special Reference to Indonesia and the Philippines

Junko Otani

23. Japan’s Disaster Risk Reduction Diplomacy and the “Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction”

Elizabeth Maly

Part 3: Disaster Experiences

24. Storytelling and the Arts as Tools in Disaster Risk Education: Tohoku University’s “Kataritsugi” and the Stories of 3.11

Julia Gerster, Akihiro Shibayama, and Madoka Ono

25. COVID-19 and SDGs: Civil Society Perspectives

Aoi Horiuchi

26. Interfaith Chaplaincy Movement in Japan Precipitated by the Tsunami in 2011

Yozo Taniyama

27. Symbolic Recovery, Intellectuals, and External Supporters in Local Reconstruction

Yoshiyuki Yama

28. Risks Confronting Buddhist Temples in Responding to COVID-19

Tim Graf

29. Women in Faith-Based Disaster Response to the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquakes

Paola Cavaliere

30. Negative Social Support During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences among Mothers of Infants and/or Young Children in Japan

Miyako Kimura

31. Mobilized Mothers Triumph: Social Movement Protest to the Triple Disaster

Nicole Freiner

32. Women and Resilience in Japan: The Role of Kirikiri’s Fujinkai Leaders in Disaster Management

Carmen Grau Vila

33. The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake and the Migrant Community in Kobe

Seonkil Kim and Rie Ogasawara

34. Resilience in the Everyday: Older People in Disaster Relocation

Stephen Ward

35. Shuri Castle: Okinawa as a Site of Vulnerability and Resilience

Ra Mason

36. Loss, Place, and Rituals: Community Commemoration in Iwate Prefecture after 3.11

Nao Sakaguchi and Julia Gerster

37. The Importance of Remembering Public Transportation Accidents in Japan

Christopher P. Hood

38. Hiroshima’s Forgotten Voices: Resilience in Hibakusha Video Testimony and Memorialization

Lauren Constance

39. Compassionate Grounds: Contemporary Artists’ Responses to the Ongoing Recovery of Tōhoku

Emily Wakeling

40. Popular Culture of Disaster: Developments Post-3.11

Akiko Nagata

Conclusion

Paola Cavaliere and Junko Otani

Appendix 1: List of Disasters 1945-2025

Appendix 2: Negative Social Support Experiences Study

Biography

Paola Cavaliere is Senior Research Fellow, University of Milan. She holds a BA in Japanese Language and Literature (University of Venice, Italy) and received a double PhD degree in East Asian Studies (University of Sheffield, UK) and Law (Tōhoku University, Japan). Her research interests are in the area of gender, religious civil society and disaster in Japan. She is the author of Promising Practices: Women Volunteers in Japanese Religious Civil Society (2015) and has published extensively on a gendered approach to Japanese faith-based volunteering and disaster, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

Junko Otani, DDS, MPH, MS, PhD, is a Professor at the Graduate School of Human Sciences at Osaka University. She also serves as Regional Director of the East Asian Center for Academic Initiatives (Shanghai Office) of Osaka University. She has worked for the World Bank and the World Health Organization. She was awarded the Royal Society of New Zealand fellowship to conduct research in Christchurch at the University of Canterbury in 2013 and the Australian Academy of Science fellowship for School of Population and Global Health, Centre for Disaster Management and Public Safety of the University of Melbourne in 2015. Her publications include Older People in Natural Disasters (2010), and Reconstructing Resilient Communities after the Wenchuan Earthquake: Disaster Recovery in China (2023).