ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the ways in which Japanese novelists and poets, manga artists, theater makers and performers, musicians, art photographers and film directors engage in the socio-cultural work of making sense of the 3.11/'Fukushima' calamity. It explains discussions on artwork from a wide spectrum of geographical, political, and aesthetic perspectives, and covers an equally broad range of genres. All analyses are based on an understanding of disaster as constructs. Solidarity with the disaster victims was also writ large in the Eat and Support campaign launched by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries together with the Consumer Affairs Agency to encourage people to consume agricultural produce from the disaster areas. Emerging from the renewed awareness of structural inequalities were numerous competing narratives effecting a precarious political re-contextualization of the whole disaster area, and in particular Fukushima.
