The Changing Character of Disaster Victimhood: Evidence from Japan’s “Great Earthquakes”

ABSTRACT

Japan is periodically wracked by “Great Earthquakes” (daijishin) – seismic events so destructive that they leave massive amounts of textual and graphic evidence, much of it produced by people who did not experience the events directly. Using this cache of information, it is possible to see how the idea of the “disaster victim” has changed over time and circumstance. My paper traces this role across five Great Earthquakes that spanned roughly 150 years (1855–2011), a period convergent with modern Japan. I will argue that the sense of who and what has been victimized by the shaking of the earth – who has suffered, what weight to attach to their loss, what actions to take and emotions to feel regarding their situation – has changed regularly, and surprisingly, over this rather short period. There is, in other words, no common Japanese experience of victimhood, even in the context of one disaster type over a relatively short historical period. The article is one contribution to an as-yet unexamined history and comparative study of the modern role of disaster victim.     

National and Local Vulnerability to Climate‐Related Disasters in Latin America: The Role of Social Asset‐Based Adaptation

The Latin American region is particularly prone to climate‐related natural hazards. However, this article argues that natural hazards are only partly to blame for the region's vulnerability to natural disasters with quantitative evidence suggesting instead that income per capita and inequality are main determinants of natural disaster mortality in Latin America. Locally, the region's poor are particularly susceptible to climate‐related natural hazards. As a result of their limited access to capital, adaptation based on social assets constitutes an effective coping strategy. Evidence from Bolivia and Belize illustrates the importance of social assets in protecting the most vulnerable against natural disasters.     

New Japanese Journals on Modern China

Abstract

This article explores popular religious conceptualizations of the environment and disasters in early twentieth-century China. In 1931, the city of Wuhan experienced a catastrophic flood. Soon a rumor began to circulate suggesting that the disaster had been caused by the recent demolition of a local Dragon King Temple. This article examines this rumor as a mode of popular discourse, using it to illustrate debates among members of the local population regarding the link between the environment, religion, and disasters. It describes the place of Dragon Kings in late imperial religious environmental management, before discussing how the status of these deities was devalued during the early twentieth century. It argues that, in spite of vigorous attempts at secular reform, for a large section of the population the experience of disasters continued to be dominated by popular religious conceptualizations of the environment. While modern critics disparaged what they saw as lamentable superstitions, for many people rainmaking Dragon Kings continued to exist.     

THE CALM AFTER THE STORM: USING MEDIATION TO RESOLVE PARENTING DISPUTES IN THE WAKE OF NATURAL DISASTERS

Hurricane Katrina not only tore apart communities along the Gulf Coast, it displaced hundreds of thousands of families throughout the country. Included in the massive numbers of displaced families were children from divorced, separated, or unmarried parents. As a result, many children have since relocated far away from one of their parents without court permission, causing an influx of parenting disputes among the unmarried parents. Litigation concerning parenting disputes that follow natural disasters is not only expensive, but is emotionally taxing on both parents and children and floods the already drained court system. This Note discusses alternative ways in which parenting disputes can be resolved following natural disasters. It explains how children are affected by relocating away from one of their parents and how those effects are comounded by natural disasters. Further, it explains how alternative dispute resolution methods help alleviate the effects of parenting disputes, specifically relocation disputes, on children. Finally, this Note proposes that all parents should be mandated to mediate any parenting disputes following natural disasters.     

论突发性灾害救济的公共伦理原则

我国是世界上灾害种类多、频次高、损失重的国家。抗灾救灾是我国国民经济和社会发展的一个重要组成部分 ,是事关中华民族生存与可持续发展的一个永恒主题。为了尽可能地减少灾害损失 ,取得最佳的救灾效果 ,在突发性灾害救济的过程中应当坚持的伦理原则有 :生命关怀优先性原则 ;损失最少化原则 ;整体利益大于局部利益原则 ;尊重灾害知情权原则。归结到一点 ,那就是要发扬社会主义人道主义原则。     

Power Play: Mediation in Symmetric and Asymmetric International Crises

This study engages with the question: Do different types of natural disasters—droughts, earthquakes, floods, storms, and others—trigger political instability? It revisits an ongoing debate over the nature of association between disasters and conflict and reassesses this relationship using the model of conflict developed by the Political Instability Task Force as well as its data, measures of political instability, and methods of assessment. The study finds only marginal support for the impact of certain types of disasters on the onsets of political instability. The preexisting country-specific conditions, including the resilience of a state's institutions to crisis, account for most of the variance in the dependent variable. Once the characteristics of a state's political regime are taken into account, the effect of disasters weakens or disappears completely, suggesting that natural disasters become catalysts of political instability in only those states which are already prone to conflict.     

中国灾区重建对口支援政策之分析——以汶川地震为例

本文就Popple & Leighninger’s(2011)“抉择分析”（Choice Analysis）,针对中国汶川救灾重建《对口支援》政策进行四个层面的分析：（一） 筛选基础;（二） 资金开源;（三） 政策推行;（四） 受益类型。进而,带出中国垂直的政策制定结构的特点,供国外治理灾害参考、对比。     

Issue ownership and salience shocks: The electoral impact of Australian bushfires

As climate change increases the frequency of natural disasters, understanding how such disasters affect voting behavior has become crucial. While the literature has demonstrated that voters punish the party of the incumbent when they experience severe destruction, it remains unclear how other political parties are affected. In particular, we argue that voters shift their support to Green parties following natural disasters, given that these parties have ownership of environmental issues. We further argue that disasters decrease mainstream leftist parties’ vote share because liberal-minded voters are more likely to be the ones switching to Green parties. Empirical tests on bushfires and voting in Australia provide some support for our predictions, as all the expected effects of fires on voting manifest in state-level tests but not constituency-level tests. This suggests that our theory may operate only at certain levels of governance, paving the way for future research into why this might be.     

Contextual and Personal Predictors of Adaptive Outcomes Under Terror Attack: The Case of Israeli Adolescents

This paper explores individual differences in perceptions of political violence, strategies for coping with violence, and adaptive outcomes. Data on political violence stress, personal variables, coping strategies, and stress reactions were gathered on a sample of 227 Israeli adolescents in Haifa and Northern Israel confronted with a prolonged period of terror attack in the course of the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Political violence stress and trait anxiety were shown to be meaningful predictors of both coping strategies and adaptive outcomes. Although adolescents reported employing more avoidance coping, on average, than other coping modes, it was primarily the use of emotion-focused coping efforts that predicted stress reactions. The observation that problem-focused coping did not meaningfully alleviate stress reactions may have been a function of the uncontrollable nature and severity of the community stressor. The data were discussed and explicated in the context of stress and coping theory and research. Professor and Dean of Research and Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Emotions, Haifa University, Mt. Carmel, Israel.     

Avoiding the emperor’s prophecy: a case for the primacy of emergency management in criminal justice and human security studies

Recent events have illustrated the reciprocal nature of the relationship between emergency management actors and law enforcement agencies. Emergency management and disaster studies, as fields of practice and academic scholarship are inherently interdisciplinary. Primary among the fields impacting their development is criminal justice. This relationship is confirmed as criminal justice departments continue to include specialized Homeland Security curriculum. However, even as universities and colleges around the country are integrating emergency management into traditional criminal justice programs, there remain gaps in recognition of the unique practical skills and perspectives disaster scholars bring to criminal justice programs. In many ways, disaster scholarship complements existing law enforcement-focused programs by expanding the breadth of what is considered public or community safety. During each phase of the disaster management cycle (preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation), emergency management research highlights the assistance of volunteer community disaster response organizations that are utilized to assist victims and survivors, and to distribute necessary aid and information. This essay provides a discussion of the linkages between emergency management, disaster studies, and criminal justice, and supports a call for a broadened, integrative approach to human security that fully recognizes the role of each.