Yuko Fujigaki Editor Lessons From Fukushima Japanese Case Studies on Science, Technology and Society Lessons From Fukushima Yuko Fujigaki Editor Lessons From Fukushima Japanese Case Studies on Science, Technology and Society 123 Editor Yuko Fujigaki Graduate School of Arts and Sciences University of Tokyo Tokyo, Tokyo Japan ISBN 978-3-319-15352-0 ISBN 978-3-319-15353-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-15353-7 Library of Congress Control Number: 2015931539 Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 This work is subject to copyright. 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Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Foreword by Rethy Chhem The destruction brought down and across the Japanese coast in March 2011 has returned to us our fear and our uncertainty. We had assumed mastery where misunderstanding and negligence lay. Above all, we have seen the world, and ourselves inside it, brought to cold reflections: How have our systems failed? How have we failed to prevent? How have we failed to imagine? The third charge, our most severe and accusatory, encompasses the whole of our missteps and malpractice towards this disaster and all before it: We may have failed to imagine. Once, requiring only a crude understanding of possibilities and outcomes, wielding technologies of risk was a seemingly simple affair. Their behaviour we assumed to be known, controlled and local. We managed the benefits and risks of these instruments with predictive laws, and thus, predictive remediation when we experience failure. The uncertainties of our technology and its scientific basis were to be uncovered through progress, never beyond the limits of investigation and never included as a feature of science. Now, in spite of this, our increasingly complex social world has challenged us to revise our entrenched narrowness of problem solving. We witness physical destruction pushing far beyond the normative framework of scientific understand- ing and must draw new ways of looking, from a variety of fields, to these intricate problems. We must filter our vision through the pages of new volumes. In sum, we must reimagine. With over 30 years’ experience in radiation medicine as a practicing radiologist, a historian of science and social scientist—along with numerous publications on clinical radiology, radiation protection and a Science-Technology-Society (STS) handbook for Fukushima Medical University (FMU)—I have developed a unique perspective on this emergent requirement of social understanding in disaster relief. The interactions between science, technology and society are immensely important v vi Foreword by Rethy Chhem to gaining a clear analysis of disaster towards remediation. With such vision, we can uncover the complex and wondrous assemblage of the nuclear reactor beneath the mechanistic surface: A singular nexus of the social, the political and the material, powered by courage and ambition. Likewise, we can investigate its failures with similar acuity. When the compound disaster of 3/11 occurred, I witnessed efforts to mitigate the short and mid-term damage of the disaster troubled by immense difficulties. As a Visiting Professor to Nagasaki and Hiroshima Universities as well as FMU, where I was teaching STS to healthcare professionals during the crisis and the recovery phase, I became acutely aware of the limitations of these emergency efforts. These efforts—which, particularly at the center of disaster, were often heroic—were not simply afflicted by the conditions of radioactive fallout, but also by misunder- standing of the unique human afflictions brought on by its after effects. Moreover, the communication of risk to the public remained greatly hindered by this lack of comprehension surrounding the social issues of the disaster. It seemed to us that otherwise clean, easily assuaged problems had lifted from the textbook and into the social, taking on the form of acute psychological illness. In other words, infor- mation that performed neatly in theory would complicate and disperse in this very alive, very human situation. This social element proved critical, with few of those professionals leading the emergency response possessing an expert understanding. The mass migration of Japanese citizens from the disaster area to safer ground, the dislocated youth, adults and elderly: all were shuttled away from their realities to form temporary lives for indefinite time. Lives caught in jeopardy, journeying between the irradiated shoreline to the anxieties of unemployment and social exclusion. Had the capacity for exploring the possibilities of our technology led to an inability to control its development? Had our dependency on the existence of this technology simply blinded us to their complex dangers? The triple disaster of 3/11 had thoroughly pierced the rigidity of disaster preparedness. To reimagine and reform, we must spread the boundaries of our understanding. The publication you hold is a welcome response to this challenge. By first addressing major questions related to the social impacts of the Fukushima Disaster, Professor Yuko Fujigaki continues a potent argument towards broadening our understanding of the placement of the Fukushima disaster in the mutable folds of society. Particularly important to our understanding, the author illustrates the historical bearing of nuclear technology—from the atomic bombings of late 1945 to the chief concern of Fukushima—on the island nation and how these technologies would become interwoven within the complex national character of Japan. This historical perspective provides Professor Fujigaki with the grounds for crucial comparisons with other diseases (Minimata and Itai-Itai disease) and with other cases (HIV- tainted-blood scandal and Winny case) in part two of publication in order to investigate the complex relationship between science, technology and society. This series of similar yet distinct technological concerns allows the author to trace the Foreword by Rethy Chhem vii actors and assemblages that construct the foundations by which technologies are envisioned, enacted and remedied, particular once they fail to serve us correctly. Professor Fujigaki’s breadth of knowledge in the field of STS and her leadership in the Japanese STS community brilliantly showcases individual efforts to progress our knowledge of risk communication, the complex layers of interactions within society, and scientific and technological activity. The creation of this publication itself is evidence of the considerable efforts shown by the professor, having led the process of gathering Japanese experts to contribute to this uniquely valuable pub- lication. Through such academic ambitions, we continue to push outward and expand the frame of our perception to the convoluted realities of disaster, partic- ularly where our social fabric has frayed most conspicuously, where lives have been troubled most deeply. And with a new vision atop these pillars of experience, relationships between particles and people attain equal importance, each requiring sound and balanced analysis. And with this analysis, we can survey our errors at its truest extent, and bring science to greater utility. Dr. Rethy Chhem Visiting Professor Fukushima Medical University Hiroshima University Nagasaki University Foreword by Wiebe E. Bijker This volume provides a rich collection of studies to help us understand the “Great East Japan Earthquake”, or rather the triple disaster—of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power plant failure—that happened in and around Fukushima in March 2011. The chapters address questions about the historical development of the Japanese nuclear program, risk management and communication, new forms of participatory technology planning, pollution and public health, and the governance of technology. These questions are addressed by using a broad range of approaches from the interdisciplinary spectrum that makes up the field of Science, Technology and Society studies (STS). But it does more than addressing these important questions generated by “Fukushima”. The volume, through its lens of the triple disaster, creates a fasci- nating cross-section of Japanese society. Using STS perspectives, Yuko Fujigaki and her colleagues sketch a picture of Japanese society that is at the same time familiar to my European eyes, and fascinatingly different. The first time I visited Japan in 2003, this was—quite