Six Years after Disaster: Fisheries Communities in Coastal Pacific Tōhoku

Abstract

This paper gives an overview on several problems in fishing villages of Sanriku in thecourse of reconstruction after the tsunami disaster in March 2011. The focus is put on two communitieson the Eastern and Western side of Oshika peninsula to show differences in efforts and success.Furthermore, qualitative observations on the micro level are included, i.e. internal conflicts withincommunities and regional policy-making during the reconstruction process, to enable a more differentiated view on problems that local residents and communities have been facing since disaster

Oyster Tourism in Postdisaster Japan: Towards an Understanding of Human-Mollusk Relations in the Miyagi Prefecture

“…This paper is based on data collected during 12 months of fieldwork in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan (Figure 1). The area of Ishinomaki was among the most severely hit by the 2011 tsunami (Wilhelm 2018) and is the main town of a vast municipality (ca. 214 square miles [544.24 square km]), formed by the merging of seven smaller districts in 2005.…”

“…The tsunami obliterated boats, processing facilities, aquacultural rafts, and nets (Funato 2011), sending local sea farmers into disarray for the duration of their harvests: oysters take two years to harvest, most seaweed ( Pyropia yezoensis , Undaria pinnatifida ) take only six months, and sea squirt takes three years. Several fishermen abandoned their villages, opting for jobs in the construction industry (Wilhelm 2018). Those people who remained, supported by governmental contributions, experienced changes in the structure of local communities and in their approach to sea farming and fishing.…”

“…Those people who remained, supported by governmental contributions, experienced changes in the structure of local communities and in their approach to sea farming and fishing. The presence of young, highly educated volunteers (Toivonen 2013), neoliberal policies promoted by the Miyagi Prefecture (Wilhelm 2018), and the new media visibility of the Sanriku coast (Gasparri and Martini 2019) promulgated disaster tourism-i.e., the practice of visiting locations affected by environmental disasters (Martini and Buda 2018). In the course of this process, instances of entrepreneurship and personal gain aligned with the reconstruction and recovery of the sea farming infrastructure.…”

Individualism and collectivism in small-scale fisheries post-3.11 Japan

“…The devastating tsunami that struck Japan's Tohoku Pacific coast in 2011 killed more than 18,000 people and destroyed countless houses and facilities. In terms of the fishing industry, the damage to the three hardest-hit administrative prefectures (Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima Prefectures) was extensive (Kase, 2012;Wilhelm, 2018) [1]. Nine years since the disaster, the Japanese government has implemented various reconstruction policies for public infrastructure and has provided financial support to individual fishers (Hamada, 2020).…”

“…Fishers who acted competitively during normal times initiated communal operations when faced with a significant emergency. These findings are significant as a local form of "disaster utopia," but disaster recovery in Tohoku is a long and ongoing process (Katayama, 2016;Wilhelm, 2018). The "disaster utopia" concept does not sufficiently explain the prolonged recovery process.…”