Ebook: Radioactive Performances - Teaching about Radiation after the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

Following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster and its release of radioactive
contamination, the Japanese state put into motion risk communication
strategies to explain the danger of radiation exposure. Through an
ethnography of state-sponsored exhibits, hands on activity, and didactic
centers aimed at providing radiation information, this article examines how
state expertise on radiation hazards is increasingly being disseminated to
the public via teaching infrastructure that are jargon-free, interactive, and
amusing. In particular, educational infrastructure in post-Fukushima Japan
foster a process that I call “radioactive performances,” where radiation is
presented as non-threatening and even beneficial. What is the impetus for
resorting to such forms of explanations in the aftermath of a nuclear disaster?
I argue that radioactive performances promote asymmetrical information
about radioactive risks, being partisan toward a state-laden politics
of revitalization in Fukushima in order to manage the vulnerabilities of an
ecologically and economically precarious Japan. While providing comprehensible
information, radioactive performances are partial in their nature,
as they omit controversial aspects of radiation dangers, as well as different
understandings of what counts as recovery. The notion of radioactiveperformances is useful to understand how environmental hazards get materialize
to support specific politics of recovery in post-disaster contexts.
[Keywords: Japan, Fukushima, nuclear disaster, radioactive contamination,
performance, risk communication, normalization]