Nuclear Disaster and Culture: Cultural Framing of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident in Japan by South Korean Anti-nukes Activism

Abstract

From the perspectives of disaster anthropology, this paper explores a brief revival of South Korean anti-nukes activism in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear power plant explosions after an earthquake and tsunami hit the northeastern coast of Japan on March 11, 2011. Specifically, it raises questions about the relations between disaster and culture like how people relate to catastrophic events and amongst themselves after such events. A disaster exposes the way in which people construct or ”frame” their peril (including the denial of it), the way they perceive their environment and their subsistence, and the ways they invent explanation, and project their continuity and promise into the future. Based on a field research of the campaigns against nuclear power and climate change from 2010 to 2013, this paper attempts to examine the response of South Korean anti-nukes activism from social change and political approaches, two general anthropological perspectives on disasters. To put the various responses of anti-nukes activism in the context, this paper examines various responses of South Korean society to the triple mega-disasters covered by the media through a discourse analysis. There are four themes that are worth examining: 1) naturalizing nation and culturalizing disaster, 2) imported foods safety, 3) economic interests, and 4) radiation risk. From social change and political approaches, it is clear that South Korean anti-nukes activists considered the Fukushima accident as contexts for the revival of activism, for the creation of new agenda, and for the development of new power relations. In addition, from a globalization approach, this paper demonstrates that the creation of transnational solidarity by South Korean anti-nukes activism as a response to the Fukushima accident also reveal a complex and contradictory process where South Korean anti􋹲nukes activists spatialize new and fluid landscapes of East Asia that can be called ‘the East Asian nation􋹲scapes’ which are interpreted differently by different actors. Most importantly, the paper is part of a growing discussion in public anthropology that asks what anthropology can do about public concerns.