WORKSHOP PROGRAM
听THURSDAY, 18 MARCH, 2021
5:00 PM 鈥� 6:30 PM听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听Keynote Presentation
听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听Nuclear Compensation: Hope, Responsibility, and Collaboration around Fukushima
听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听HIROKAZU MIYAZAKI, Northwestern University
听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听Discussant: Kathryn Goldfarb, University of Colorado
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FRIDAY, 19 MARCH, 2021
3:00 PM 鈥� 3:05 PM听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听Welcome
听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听TIM OAKES and KATHRYN GOLDFARB, University of Colorado
3:05 PM 鈥� 3:45 PM听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听Suspending Damage: Atomic Livelihood in the Age of Decommissioning
听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听RYO MORIMOTO, Princeton University
听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听Discussant: Tim Oakes, University of Colorado
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3:45 PM 鈥� 4:25 PM听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听Living in Paradox: Technopolitics of Health and Well-Being in Fukushima
听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听HIROKO KUMAKI, Dartmouth College
听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听Discussant: Donna Goldstein, University of Colorado
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4:40 PM 鈥� 5:20 PM听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听Sound Trucks as Technology of Antinuclear Protest
听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听听NORIKO MANABE, Temple University
听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听Discussant: Miriam Kingsberg Kadia, University of Colorado
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5:20 PM 鈥� 6:00 PM听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听Hidden Vulnerability: Power, Structure, and Nuclear Disaster in Fukushima
听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听SULFIKAR AMIR, Nanyang Technology University
听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听Discussant: Darren Byler, University of Colorado
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This was first of three workshops organized for the project 鈥�A Tale of Two Asias: Living In and Beyond the Nuclear Age,鈥� hosted by the Center for Asian Studies. Funding for the project is being provided by the Albert Smith Nuclear Age Fund at the 精品SM在线影片.
About the project
March 2021 marks ten years since the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Not only did the triple reactor-core meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant create an unprecedented public health and economic challenge for all of Japan, but it also marked a shift in the trajectory of Japan鈥檚 nuclear industry. Whereas before the Fukushima disaster Japan was expected to produce up to 50% of its electricity needs from nuclear energy by 2020, that number currently stands at 20%, roughly 2/3 of what it was a decade ago. While the future remains uncertain, Japan鈥檚 reliance on nuclear power to meet the majority of its energy needs is no longer guaranteed. Japan, of course, remains the only country in the world to have experienced wartime nuclear bombing. Long an ambassador for nuclear disarmament, Japan now sees itself questioning the peacetime production of nuclear energy as well.
Three years after the Fukushima disaster, China鈥檚 President Xi Jinping announced his signature foreign policy initiative: the 鈥楤elt & Road鈥�. Designed in large part to address China鈥檚 oversupply of domestic infrastructural construction capacity, much of the BRI focuses on developing energy infrastructure connectivities across Asia and beyond, with nuclear power being a significant part of this infrastructure development. With 47 existing reactors which already account for 1/5 of global nuclear power generating capacity, China proposes to build at least 30 new reactors across Asia, as part of the BRI, by 2030. This in addition to the 43 new reactors already planned for construction听within听China. In contrast to Japan, then, China鈥檚 future reliance on nuclear power is guaranteed. Indeed, China increasingly presents itself as a model of how to live in the nuclear age, while in Japan there has been much greater emphasis on living听beyond听the nuclear age.
The Center for Asian Studies will host a series of three focused workshops exploring this 鈥渢ale of two Asias.鈥� Already engaged in a broader examination of Asian infrastructure development through the China Made project (see听), we will explore Japanese and Chinese modes of living in the nuclear age through a technopolitical lens, including considerations of the impacts of energy infrastructures on everyday life, social movements and cultural engagements with nuclear energy development, and the political implications of infrastructural risk and vulnerability. Collectively, these workshops will ask: What are the technopolitical dimensions of efforts to both survive in and move beyond the nuclear age in Asia? What do we learn from paying particular attention to the Japanese and Chinese contexts of these efforts?
About the workshop
鈥淎 Decade of Fukushima鈥� was held during Spring 2021, to coincide with the 10th听Anniversary of the March 11, 2011 disaster, and will explore socio-cultural and technopolitical dimensions of Japan鈥檚 post-disaster efforts to survive and flourish in the nuclear age. We approach 鈥榯echnopolitics鈥� in a broad and inclusive frame, drawing for instance on work by Hecht (2012a and 2012b) and Mitchell (2002). For Von Schnitzler (2016, 10) technopolitics 鈥渞efers to the ways in which political actions are embedded within technical forms and, conversely, the ways in which the technical shapes political questions. Thus, techno-politics may denote the ways in which large-scale engineering or infrastructure projects function as vehicles or expressions of larger political goals and forms of power, but it also and more broadly foregrounds the materiality of politics and political expression.鈥� We are particularly interested in bringing this perspective into conversation with social movements and cultural practices in post-Fukushima Japan.
While there has already been a significant amount of scholarship on different social and cultural dimensions of post-disaster Japan, we seek to foreground analyses that interrogate the intersections between cultural practices and technical or scientific processes in Japan鈥檚 efforts to address nuclear disaster risks, vulnerabilities and resiliency; energy needs and stability; and ecological security and sustainability. At the same time, a central workshop objective is to provide a set of innovative accounts that help us understand the novel ways that Japanese people live within, seek to survive, and mobilize to move beyond the nuclear age. The workshop aims to provide an audience less familiar with the Japanese experience with a compelling window into the insights that Japan鈥檚 engagements with the technopolitics of nuclear energy, and with the risks and vulnerabilities of nuclear disaster in particular, might provide for people living within sociotechnical nuclear regimes in places like the US and Europe. Ultimately, we all live in the nuclear age; we hope the workshop papers will help us envision a path toward greater sociotechnical possibilities in the nuclear age.
Paper presenters
Sulfikar Amir, Associate Professor of Science, Technology, and Society, Nanyang Technical University
Hiroko Kumaki, Postdoctoral Fellow in Anthropology, Dartmouth College
Noriko Manabe, Associate Professor of Music, Temple University
Hirokazu Miyazaki, Kay Davis Professor of Anthropology, Northwestern University
Ryo Morimoto, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Princeton University
Discussants
Darren Byler, Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Asian Studies
Kathryn Goldfarb, Assistant Professor, Anthropology
Donna Goldstein, Professor, Anthropology
Tim Oakes, Professor of Geography and Director, Center for Asian Studies
Miriam Kingsberg Kadia, Associate Professor, History