|
View the h-japan Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in h-japan's October 2011 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] View the Next Message in h-japan's October 2011 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] Visit the h-japan home page.
On-line editor: Janet R. Goodwin <jan@cs.csustan.edu>
H-JAPAN (E)
October 9, 2011
From: JFMorris <jfmorris@mgu.ac.jp>
Dear List Members
I would like to thank David Slater for his open call to bring together
people working on the disaster in Tohoku.
However, reading his proposal, I cannot help but feel a certain disquiet
about it. I think that this stems most directly from the fact that I
cannot find Tohoku involved in this proposal in any but a passive way. If
you want to reflect the voices of people from Tohoku, then why not get us
involved from the outset? Tohoku University had set up one of the major
world class interdiscipinary research projects on natural disasters some
years before this current disaster (we all knew that a big one was coming,
and were already gearing up for it): outside of Tohoku University,
numerous scholars within Tohoku are involved in dealing with it a
multitude of ways. One thing that has really bugged me watching reporting
on this disaster unfold is that we of Tohoku are there to be talked about,
but not to be seriously allowed to go much beyond eyewitness accounts, the
more heart-rending the better. If you want to deal with topics such as
trying to reframe Tohoku history (this requires you to reframe crucial
junctures of "Japanese" history...), interdisciplinary approaches to
studying disasters, experiences learnt from this disaster, then there is a
wealth of academic experience here. Is the problem that the overwhelming
portion of this is available in Japanese? This list was originally set up
with the high ideal of bringing Japanese and non-Japanese scholars
together in a truly bilingual list, where posting in 2 languages was meant
to be the norm... How many years is it since I saw anything on this list
written in Japanese, let alone any other language?
While on my high horse, I would like to add a little word of caution about
barging in and doing research here. I am as much aware of the need to do
this as anyone else. As IKEDA Ken'ichi pointed out in his posting of 3rd
October, (1) Japan does have ethical standards to be maintained in
conducting research, and (2) the Ministry of Education and Science has put
out effectively a blanket ban on doing research unless this is specifically
at the request of the local government of the relevant area: there are that
many people crawling through this area that this kind of restriction is
necessary (well, up to a point...).
I do not want to start a flame; that is furthest from my intention. From
his postings to this net, I am seriously impressed with David's commitment
to acting both as a rank and file member of humanity, and as an academic,
to reacting in a constructive way to this disaster. However, if you want
to start some kind of a summing up, if you leave the major research
centres of the region out, then I think that you are going to miss
something very important. If I have misconstrued David's posting, then I
apologise in advance.
Faithfully,
John Morris
Miyagi Gakuin Women's University
********************************************************
TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE H-JAPAN LIST
Send a message to listserv@h-net.msu.edu
Leave the subject line blank
The body of the message should read
subscribe h-japan <your name, your affiliation>
OR SUBSCRIBE VIA OUR WEB SITE
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/lists/subscribe.cgi
********************************************************
 Humanities & Social Sciences Online 
|