A Sociological Study on Disaster Suffering and Mitigation in Tsunami-Prone Societies

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24730432
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Sociology
• Research Institution: Tohoku Gakuin University
• Principal Investigator: Ueda Kyoko 東北学院大学, 教養学部, 准教授 (70582930)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 災害常習地 / 災害文化 / 津波 / 集落の存続 / 災害脆弱性 / 災害からの回復力

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Before the "unprecedented" scale of Tsunami hit many of the Japanese fishing vilages in 2011, some of them, in each history, had already gone through former tsunami, for example in 1896 and 1933 in tsunami-prone area called Sanriku region. The aim of this study was to explore the way such tsunami-prone communities cope with the situation that the hamlets themselves would have been hard to endure.
Field research showed that: (1) the rituals or festivals, which were calendrical "routine" in their normal life, could contribute to rebuild the rhythm of their daily life in severely disaster-affected communities since it enabled them to foresee their realistic outlook in the chaotic situation. (2) Such tsunami-prone communities themselves played a role to inform them of the future attacks of tsunami transgenerationally because lifespan was often shorter than the historical intervals of past tsunami.

Free Research Field

社会学、民俗学、文化人類学