Progress in Disaster Science 9 (2021) 100141 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Progress in Disaster Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pdisas Regular Article Exploratory case study for neighborhood participation in recovery process: A case from the great East Japan earthquake and tsunami in Kesennuma, Japan ⁎ Kensuke Otsuyama a, , Rajib Shaw b a Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, 4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8904, Japan b Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University, 5322 Endo, Fujisawa-shi, Kanagawa 252-0882, Japan ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: About ten years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. In the context of Japan, neighbor- Received 23 July 2019 hood voluntary civic associations (NVCA) play significant roles in communicating, sharing, and building consensus Received in revised form 24 October 2020 at grassroots level in Japan, though it is unclear what are the elements for the successful engagement of disaster sur- Accepted 11 November 2020 vivors at the neighborhood level. This study examined whether community activities with the direct participation Available online 20 January 2021 by disaster survivors enhance DRR activities, or external stakeholders strengthen those activities. Through the field survey in Kesennuma City, asymmetric results imply that the NVCA activities diverged from sociohistorical Keywords: Disaster recovery background. Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Participation multi stakeholders' involvement Civic association 1. Introduction approach with the government reconstruction efforts. Here we will use ‘di- rect participation’ as participating by disaster survivors in the decision- Once in a millennium event, the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsu- making process at grassroots level. Iiduka [19]alsopointedoutthatanin- nami (hereafter referred to as GEJET), occurred on March 11, 2011. The termediary organization also functions to connect and coordinate neighbor- death toll was 19,729 and still missing 2559 bodies as of March 2020, hood organizations with external resources such as NPO/NGOs or research and more than 120 thousand houses were destroyed [34]. Although institutions, while Inagaki [20] cautioned that intermediation would fail if about 10 years have passed since the event and the recovery process has the external group underestimated the self-motivation of disaster survivors somewhat progressed, roughly 1850 people are still living in temporary and neighborhood groups. Then, what are the elements for the successful houses as of November, 2020 [34]. Through the several devastating disas- engagement of disaster survivors for rebuilding the neighborhood? This is ters over the decades since the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake (1995) in Japan, a central research question in this study. the natural hazards were beyond the government ability to minimize the Authors conducted field survey through the questionnaire and non- risks particularly after the GEJET in 2011. The national legislation for disas- structured interview, focusing on neighborhood association which rooted ter risk reduction (hereafter referred to as DRR), the Disaster Countermea- local history and indigenous cultural boundaries in Japan. The selected re- sures Basic Act was amended in 2013 to promote community based DRR search field was Kesennuma City in Japan. Kesennuma suffered from the activities at neighborhood level [9]. third highest mortality in the GEJET impacted municipalities in which a Past literature reported that top-down recovery plans sometimes made couple of communities were destroyed more than 60% of the houses, trouble such as forced migration due to the readjustment of zoning, prohibit while the subsequent processes are diverse. The interview based on the habitation, and unqualified housing due to the insensitivity to the local en- questionnaire survey revealed the asymmetric situation at the post- vironment [2,11,21,33]. Ganapati and Ganapati [16] also critically pointed disaster phase because Kesennuma has experienced catastrophes not only out that the narrow definition of ‘public’ caused exclusion from participa- the GEJET but two more huge tsunamis for 120 years. Disaster survivors tion by local communities and disaster victims in the recovery housing pro- have reconstructed the city again and again. In this exploratory case jects. In other words, direct participation by disaster survivors (or victims) study, the authors aim to understand how the previous lessons were trans- to the decision-making process rather than participation by selected stake- formed into lessons or decayed over the century. To answer this, the rela- holders, is the key for rebuilding the neighborhood as a complementary tionship of citizens' participation intersecting with indigenous culture and ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (K. Otsuyama), [email protected] (R. Shaw). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pdisas.2021.100141 2590-0617/© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/ 4.0/). K. Otsuyama, R. Shaw Progress in Disaster Science 9 (2021) 100141 external networks were examined as potential variables of questionnaire 2.3. Selected variables and research framework survey, and then non-structured interviews were administered to two se- verely impacted communities in the city. As an exploratory case study, this paper picked up two perspectives: in- This exploratory case study might contribute to identify the potential ternal resources for voluntary neighborhood association activities and ex- variables which promote community driven DRR activities at neighbor- ternal stakeholders. This paper examined how these two perspectives hood level, but the results limit its generalization to all types and place of were interrelated to DRR activities at NVCA level and District Association disasters due to the deeply rooted local context. Therefore, the key take- level in a city. away of this study would inform other researchers for the customized var- Shaw et al. [35] mentioned that indigenous culture or cultural succes- iables based on the local context. sion strengthens the neighborhood in bonding through intergenerational interactions. As local festivals or cultural events are managed annually, management members have shared the responsibility, leadership, and ad- 2. Research framework ministration tasks. Wilson [47] also stated: “Social memory leads to a learn- ing and adjustment phase based on past experience”; local lessons need to 2.1. Community participation and involvement other stakeholders translate into activities. For example, the level of participation is based on whether they have initiatives for disaster risk reduction activities such as The forms of participation are broadly varied [3,17]: for example, par- evacuation drills and updating evacuation maps. As ( [15], p. 259) indi- ticipating as part of the labor force for housing recovery reconstruction, in- cated, “memory is the accumulated experience and history of the system, volving only stakeholders for house builders and donors excluding citizens and it provides content and sources for renewal, recombination, innova- [16], or joining in the decision-making process in post-disaster phases [13]. tion, novelty and self-organization following disturbance.” In the context One of the issues on the intersection of community participation is its selec- of Japan particularly the GEJET impacted area, local traditional performing tion of stakeholders concerning the size and inclusive involvement to and festivals contribute to communicate over the generations and to suc- achieve wider, but not competitive, participation in pre- and post-disaster ceed its tradition at the neighborhood level [46]. Also, tea parity and health planning [5,8,10]. Although stakeholders are represented from various sec- exercise and neighborhood level function as communication tools for com- tors including local industries, non-profit organizations, and elected offi- munity bonding, therefore these activities were used for soft interventions cials as local decision-makers, the gap between disaster survivors and to enhance communication in disaster temporary housing in the post- represented stakeholders is frequently reported [7,21,28]. Case studies in disaster phase [27]. It is unknown that these neighborhood activities di- Kobe Earthquake (1995) vividly demonstrated that direct participation by rectly promote DRR activities at NVCA or District level, though this paper disaster survivors and intermediate role of external planning professional used them as exploratory case study. as external human resources were successful completed its consensus for Literature on social network and disaster recovery were reviewed with a the planning at the neighborhood level [2,31]. In other words, matching matrix by Jones and Faas [22]. The matrix consists of egocentric networks of internal and external resources for neighborhood recovery planning a and sociocentric networks which are divided by individuals and organiza- key approach. tions. Egocentric network defined as “ties in each individual's or organization's own network, while sociocentric network as “an identifiable 2.2. Neighborhood voluntary civic association in Japan group or interaction sphere” [22]. As an egocentric network study, Steven- son and Conradson [39] found that preexisting relationships among 32