Anthony Oliver-Smith Reading

Several points from Anthony Oliver-Smith’s Anthropological Research on Hazards and Disasters jumped out at me as applicable to the developing situation in Japan. First was his statement, "If a society cannot withstand without major damage and disruption a predictable feature of its environment, that society has not developed in a sustainable way" (304). I found this statement very interesting because, for Japan, earthquakes and tsunamis are a natural consequence of its landscape, so it would be expected that its society would be built to withstand them. After the 1995 Kobe earthquake which brought major damage to the region, we saw dramatic structural modifications and enhancements to buildings and structures that resulted in much greater safety during and less damage from the latest earthquake in developed cities such as Tokyo. On the other hand, the Fukushima nuclear reactor was supposed to be earthquake-proof, but the ensuing tsunami still managed to cripple the plant and lead to a very dangerous situation. It will be interesting to observe how Japan's nuclear plants evolve from this incident -- and if then, according to Oliver-Smith's definition, we can say they have "developed in a sustainable way."

Next I was intrigued by the statement "chronic technological disasters...provoke conflict particularly over interpretations of the event" (307). We have talked in class about whether or not the nuclear disaster is a "natural disaster" or "man made." I am interested to see how the debate in Japan and the international media progresses, and what compensation (if any) Fukushima will end up providing to affected parties. In the infamous BP oil spill in 2010, which was definitely man-made, BP ended up providing large amounts of compensation to affected businesses and households -- they ran a wide-scale media campaign in the US to try to clear their name and make people aware that they were working around the clock to "make things right" and get the Gulf Coast economy back on its feet again.

Finally, I was really interested in the mention of "the importance of pre-disaster cultural knowledge" (308). Prevalent among the American media stories have been reports (mostly of amazement) of how calm, organized, and "stoic" the Japanese people have seemed in the face of disaster -- patiently waiting for food, rationing fuel, no looting, maintaining orderly evacuation shelters, etc. Also, in my NGO Management class, we talked about an outside group that was trying to work with a local NGO to provide 300,000 meals of rice to affected areas -- but there were a few problems. First, the rice was not Japanese rice -- it was long-grain jasmine rice, and the well-meaning donors could not understand why the substitute would not be acceptable. Second, the rice packets came printed with a picture of an emaciated child holding their hands out to receive a bowl of rice -- an image that the Japanese would surely reject. The donating organization's lack of "cultural knowledge" prevented them from seeing the issues that would come with their donation (which did not end up working out) -- I think this will be a really important concept going forward as tons of aid continues to pour in to the Japanese community.