Research Portfolio

Crisis & Care in Rural Japan

The 2011 Tōhōku earthquake, tsunami. and nuclear disaster revealed the insufficiencies of Japan’s disaster response infrastructure, especially in its many underserved rural areas. Officials, activists, and researchers looked for ways to improve this infrastructure.

I traveled to northern Iwate Prefecture in 2012 to explore the potential of community Buddhist temples to act as emergency relief centers. Generally, schools and community centers serve this role. However, large scale disasters often push these facilities to their limits, overcrowding spaces and increasing strain center personnel and residents. As established community institutions and traditional funerary centers, Buddhist temples are well situated to manage large occupancy and grief.

I conducted participant observation over three months as a volunteer with temple faculty and other volunteers to observe temple workflow and how community members interacted with the temple. Using surveys and formal and semi-structured interviews, I collected demographic data on parishioners and testimony on how they felt about local temples.

I discovered that when parishioners felt temple faculty had violated traditional notions of how temples should behave, they were less likely to seek that temple’s aid. These transgressions included domestic squabbles between faculty, or head priests driving a car. Using this data, I drafted research briefs addressing temples’ institutional weaknesses and suggesting potential interventions.

We also used this data to inform interventions into other local crises. For one, we mobilized temples’ existing strong social networks to bolster government outreach for elderly residents struggling with depression and suicide.