Maternal responsibility and blame in technological disaster: radiation risk management as gendered labor after Fukushima

Abstract

State governance after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident created a culture of silence and tolerance surrounding radiation risk, and deliberately fueled the popular understanding that acting upon radiation-related concern was antithetical to national and regional economic recovery. Outright denial of danger by Japanese leaders, paired with loosened safety standards and limited state support for affected residents by way of guidance and compensation, led to a privatization of radiation risk management that placed responsibility for exposure reduction onto families while also constraining their action. Drawing on in-depth interviews and participant observation, this article explores how such dynamics fell most heavily on concerned mothers, who were far more likely to take on this additional realm of domestic labor and care work due to deeply ingrained norms of gendered labor and citizenship. Yet such maternal labor was not lauded as a valuable social contribution. Rather, concerned mothers found themselves in a double bind in which to care for their families through vigilant avoidance of potential risk was to betray the state. Risk mitigation came to require a significant amount of emotion work associated with not appearing overly anxious or paranoid, constantly assessing the risk perception of others, and at times suppressing concern and compromising on risk tolerance. The results of this study suggest that neoliberal models of environmental risk management, particularly in moments of high uncertainty surrounding the risk in question, can not only create internal, interpersonal, and community conflict but also exacerbate existing gender inequalities.

Keywords:

• Fukushima disaster
• gender
• Japan
• motherhood
• risk management

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for the valuable feedback provided by Phil Brown, Linda Blum, Sara Wylie, Daniel Aldrich, and members of the Social Science Environmental Health Institute at Northeastern University. I also greatly appreciate the guidance and support provided by Kanchana Ruwanpura and three anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

The author reports that there are no competing interests to declare.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (T32-ES023769).

Notes on contributors

Elicia Mayuri Cousins

Elicia Cousins is an Assistant Professor in the Education Development and Learning Support Center at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Oita, Japan.