Love Disaster Yoshikawa

Risk Society and Education in Post-Disaster Fukushima

In response to the explosion of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in March 2011, this book examines how the concept of a risk society was handled in the various education programs implemented in post-disaster Fukushima. The explosion and subsequent radiation contamination that affected the biosphere of the Fukushima region and beyond, revealed that we live in a risk society. Despite this revelation, official discourses in Fukushima have been geared strictly toward the future, with the aim of restoring communities and resuming development projects. Based on the ethnographic data the author collected in Fukushima between 2013 and 2016, various contested emotions emerged in those education spaces as students and teachers remembered their romanticized and difficult past and dealt with the challenges presented by the risk society in their present lives. The emotionally-charged interactions between past and present also shaped their vision of their future community and of the actions they might take. The dialogues and actions that took places in these education spaces encourage readers to examine the meaning of development and question the basic assumptions and methods of education as society shifts to a risk society. A valuable resource for scholars and students in the fields of globalization and education, curriculum studies, sociology of education, and Japanese studies.

Mountains, Radio Waves and a Love Letter

As time went by and I was about to turn fifty, I could only take three or four days off at the most. I have learned to use this as an excuse to "buy time with money". It sounds poetic, but it's just a fixed way of thinking that makes you give up on the details and hassles which you may encounter. It stuck in my mind like a fatty piece of meat does to your belly and finally, I couldn't get rid of it. But what do I do with the time I have saved? The answer is “nothing special”. The author, Shinji Yoshikawa, has been a company employee for 25 years and realized with 50 knocking on the door, that he had never traveled alone since he became a family man, and lived and journeyed with his wife and daughters. But during the Christmas holiday in 2018, he got 4 consecutive days off from his hardworking time in a Mexican-Japanese company. A rare treat indeed. The destination he chose was "Evergreen Ranch" in Chiapas, Mexico, where travelers mainly from Europe and North America are competing for booking one of their only two rooms. Do you need radio waves, schools, or sophisticated infrastructure to enjoy life? Did you ever imagine how horses would react to your words? What is your priority when you travel? These are some of the questions you encounter when you dive into the whole story. This travelogue depicts the entire experience of spending time at a guesthouse with a perfect TripAdvisor rating.

Bulletin [of The] Disaster Prevention Research Institute