Japan Copes with Calamity

'Help[s] bring the disaster zone to life for readers and communicate the extraordinary difficulties of large-scale calamity.' (Peter Wynn Kirby, University of Oxford, from a review in 'Social Science Japan Journal') 'Well referenced in anthropology theory and history, 'Japan Copes with Calamity' goes to the core of practical and theoretical concerns in disaster study and substantially advances the field.' (Susanna M. Hoffman, co-editor of 'Catastrophe and Culture') 'An important contribution both to Japanese studies and to the social science of disasters. It succeeds in rendering comprehensible an extremely complex sociocultural event.' (Harumi Befu, Stanford University) 'These are first-rate ethnographies displaying not only great empathy but also deep contextual knowledge of contemporary Japanese society and culture. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the resiliency of the human spirit in the wake of catastrophic events.' (Ted Bestor, Harvard University)

Tom Gill is Professor of Social Anthropology at the Faculty of International Studies, Meiji Gakuin University in Yokohama. Brigitte Steger is Senior Lecturer in Modern Japanese Studies at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Downing College. David H. Slater is Professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts at Sophia University in Tokyo and Director of the Institute of Comparative Culture there.

Contents: Tom Gill/Brigitte Steger/David H. Slater: The 3.11 Disasters - David H. Slater: Urgent Ethnography - Brigitte Steger: Solidarity and Distinction through Practices of Cleanliness in Tsunami Evacuation Shelters in Yamada, Iwate Prefecture - Nathan J. Peterson: Adapting Religious Practice in Response to Disaster in Iwate Prefecture - Johannes Wilhelm/Alyne Delaney: No Homes, No Boats, No Rafts: Miyagi Coastal People in the Aftermath of Disaster - David McNeill: Them versus Us: Japanese and International Reporting of the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis - Ikeda Yoko: The Construction of Risk and the Resilience of Fukushima in the Aftermath of the Nuclear Power Plant Accident - Morioka Rika: Mother Courage: Women as Activists between a Passive Populace and a Paralyzed Government - Tom Gill: This Spoiled Soil: Place, People and Community in an Irradiated Village in Fukushima Prefecture - Tuukka Toivonen: Youth for 3.11 and the Challenge of Dispatching Young Urban Volunteers to North-eastern Japan - David H. Slater: Moralities of Volunteer Aid: The Permutations of Gifts and their Reciprocals - Brigitte Steger: Still Missing ...