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Dear all,
Thanks for the good wishes and great support, and sorry for the impersonal mail
for this time as I have not anticipated to have got so many reactions.
Some were offers of collaborating projects, others posed important ethical
concerns. Even offering me a shelter was hugely grateful. All messages are
educational for me. Thank you so much.
REGARDING RESEARCH ON THE DISASTER
I am afraid that I might have been lack of talk because I am linguistically
challenged. I did not mean to invite you to study focusing on a calamitous event
at the moment. Interviewing with those who lost one’s home to Tsunami and the
nuclear accident? Certainly not. They have already to dominate news headlines.
I have to apologize those who got interested in setting up the project right now
and are ready for the field trip to this country. But now is not very good
timing to take action for fieldwork. According to my friend who works for
anthropology of natural disaster (especially major earthquake), what he would
like researchers to do is to maintain an awareness of it, and in half a year,
they will be able to start the investigation. So, please take my previous
posting as to bring up an idea of new anthropological contribution.
I did provide contact information of those who got interested to the Japanese
researchers in the related field, but please kindly give them a few weeks to
reply to. Until then, please continue to hold your interest. I am sorry if I
mislead you.
MY PERSONAL THOUGHTS ON 17TH, MARCH
It will take more time to sort out my idea. Currently it is hard to use PC due
to rolling blackouts.
What I can say briefly now is that the “disaster fields” should be located
carefully. The word “disaster” easily reminds you of the images of dead bodies,
protective clothing in atomic crisis, crying children who lost their parents or
rescue activities. Our imaginations tend to derive from what you have already
seen through news release and movies. They reflect absolutely one side of the
reality.
But what I am directly experiencing is, as Rebecca Solnit, the American
nonfiction writer, we have something like “order” now. But it’s not exact the
one. Rather, as Nigel Rapport termed “irony”, which is human capacity of virtue
to interpret one’s life and surroundings in imaginative ways with hope. To some
extent, we are ignoring dominant discourses by means of keeping our daily
routines. I am cautious about simplistic cultural relativism like “the Japanese
are well-ordered”.
Once you shift your frame from the absolutely devastated area to other afflicted
places, the multiple realities are neither catastrophic nor mutual cooperative
as you imagine.
Following Tim Ingold’s “fieldwork from the ground”,
Here, I will list some firsthand information surrounding me:
We have access to the (official and informal) data of amount of radiation every
hour measured by Geiger counters. The amount in my place is several times more
than usual, but still much lower than Kerara and Ramsar where are so called
“High Background Radiation Area”.So, (sooner or later it will turn out if we are
over-optimistic or indomitable) my neighbors are not panicking. They say,
everything will be ok in a month.
During blackout, we still have constant stream of traffic without traffic light
or police.
It is not orderly at all but I have not heard any ambulance sirens. On the other
hand, all gas stations have been closed for no fuel. I wonder how people can
keep driving cars.
The lottery stand near my house sells lottery tickets and the staff told me that
the earthquake has no impact on sales.
My music teacher told me that two men and a girl got in to start learning
ukulele and guitar in this week.
Yesterday, I saw an airport limousine leaving this town to Narita international
airport are filled with non-Japanese.
A friend of mine decided to evacuate to Kyushu district taking her children and
leaving her husband.
More than 50 % of people in this town are wearing masks. This is a sort of
seasonal feature. 30% of the Japanese population have allergy to cedar pollen
and wearing a mask is quite common in this season.
Of course some may mask for preventing from radioactive substances. The rest of
them do not guard their faces.
I wish I could write more, but unfortunately, from now, the town I am living is
going to blackout for hours.
So, this is so far I can inform you.
Take care, and thank you for all your encouragements!
All the best,
Kiyomi Doi
PhD candidate,
University of Tokyo,
Japan
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