Summary of SEAA READS, session ten 6/2024

Ryo Morimoto 2023 Nuclear Ghost, The Atomic Livelihoods in Fukushima’s Gray Zone

https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520394117/nuclear-ghost 

Our bookclub discussion in summer again was hosted by Bill Kelly, who crafted a couple of questions for the group to consider ahead of the online conversation. (1) What might be distinctive features and requirements of anthropological fieldwork in a “disaster” site as opposed to what most of us encounter. And (2) what is it that anthropologists, among other researchers, might be contributing to our understandings of 3.11 [Fukushima prefecture's 2011 triple disaster in March] and its aftermath.

The book distills its place and time out of the author's dissertation, together with several years involved on the database of the Japan Disasters Archive [https://jdarchive.org/en] that was launched to gather the hurricane of online sources during and after the Fukushima disaster from earthquake, tsunami, nuclear radiation release and persisting contamination, as well as the clean-up aftermath and the information disaster triggered from all these separate disasters, both personal and collective. As a first-generation college educated Japanese researching in Japan but writing in English, the ethnography stands out in many ways. Unlike the archetypic fieldwork project of single site, well-defined objects and then the writing and revision process, these events and the many people, places, and livelihoods called for multi-site, multi-source (statistics, digital media from local, regional, national, international, amateur and expert voices) study and consideration. The experience of reading such multi-faceted subjects mirrors this fragmentary terrain of information, understanding of those inside and outside the place, and range of relevant topics. Seemingly random points of interest become chapter writing prompts to shed light on the emic and etic experiences of the proximate events as well as the cascade of rippling consequences ongoing years after 2011. This ethnographic engagement on the ground and on the page differs to articles published in a smaller scope and in more confined, linear ways. 

The online discussion came across many intersections of the book during the get-together: the epigraphs from novelist Haruki Murakami both signaled the experienced blur of fiction (including magical realism) and non-fiction and Morimoto's own use of the "en" (relationship, connection) trope that he heard Minami-soma residents using. The book's title "Nuclear Ghost" and the author's shorthand for the experience there (Gray Zone) embodies the simultaneous presence and invisibility of radiation but also the informational disaster of communications from the authorities and among residents themselves, as well as outside gawkers. Parallels to Japan disasters in Minamata (mainly males who publicly articulate the subject in hindsight)* and in Niigata (Niigata Minamata Disease, mainly females who publicly articulate the subject retrospectively) were also discussed, particularly for the angry tension between residents who want to move on and those who want never to forget. Parts of the disasters take visible form as monuments and commemorative events, but also in bagging up the contamination to bury or build over. Some locals feel freer to speak on the subject than others who are constrained (or constrain themselves) by a variety of factors.

In the abundance of viewpoints, data, and outlets for opinion and experience the ethnographer's job remains as ever to listen and (re)present the local experiences. But when local voices repeat national ones and vice versa in cycles of echo, can the fieldworker (and later the author of ethnography) take the phrases and standpoints of local respondents at face value; outside the context of this media ocean that they swim in? During the online conversation, the answer to this question seems to be that yes, you believe what they express - no matter the origin of the wording they use, but that theirs alone is not the whole story. Related is the question of ethnographer as advocate for the people being described (Kim Fortun's work). For example, Morimoto adjusts the emphasis of the 3.11 events by identifying them in relation to the "TEPCO accident," in a break with the widespread convention of using "Fukushima" as the primary identifier. That revised naming practice intentionally shifts the focus of the disaster to Tokyo Electric Power's actions and inactions, as it also serves to counter the injustice of how the region and its residents have been stigmatized by the catastrophe. One reader, who expressed their appreciation for this advocacy on the part of the author, wondered why he didn't take it a step farther: Why not simply call it the "TEPCO disaster," given how referring to 3.11 as an "accident" can serve to downplay TEPCO's culpability?

Another reader experienced Morimoto's style as encapsulating the fieldwork disorientation of wandering, bumping into people, problems, objects that triggered questions and dialog with residents. Just as the fieldworker was thinking out loud and reflecting on the things connected to his informants and the state of the cultural landscape and social fabric, so also does the reader feel these insights as they emerge on the page. One reader seized upon the chapter in which a call-in radio listener posed a question about radioactive exposure risk of mosquitos in the radiation zone. External and internal radiation exposure were considered and the matter was not entirely explored, but it signaled the unexpected way that small things take on new meaning post-disaster. Still another reader shone a spotlight on Morimoto's JDArchive.org experience of daily facing too much information. By doing fieldwork in Fukushima, Morimoto could ground the many kinds and levels of information in real places, people and issues.

In sum, the SEAA Reads conversation saw Nuclear Ghost as an important topic (there are doubtless more disasters to come, including nuclear radiation instances, and more ethnographies that include disaster settings) and they saw it as an interesting way to approach the subject with sources and methods, but also an interesting way to put all these things into words for publication. As one of the key informants told Morimoto, "Tell the world and especially younger generation what you witnessed in Minamisoma." That is exactly what he has done.

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* Further to Minamata Disease, https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1016/S1479-3709%2805%2908811-4/full/html
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The next SEAA Reads gathering online is October 5, 2024 and will feature Monica Liu’s Seeking Western Men: Email-order Brides Under China's Global Rise. (2023, Stanford University Press). The conversation will be led by Pr. Ellen Oxfeld. 

https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=35148

See more about SEAA Reads at https://seaa.americananthro.org/seaa-reads/