Disaster Vulnerability Taken Away, and Vulnerability as a Restored Paradigm

Abstract

This study analyzed the social characteristics of Japan in interpreting disasters and how the logic of danger and risks is used to cover up the problem of vulnerability in the social context. This study has proved that in fact, safety and peace are ideological concept that exist between disasters, and that everyday life hides the reality of the continuation of disasters. Extending this logic, this study has presented the largest factors that enable disasters to conceal the social vulnerability and prevent people from realizing that in everyday life through a specific keyword, along with their historicity. This has led to the realization that vulnerability is socially created, and paradoxically, it is also an essential factor that helps realize the social structure. Such realization shows that the Japanese society understands danger and risks as 'the same concept' and is subjected to this concept, which has led to the logic of disasters concealing the problems related to class and vulnerability. Consequently, this study suggested that the logic of disasters should be reborn as the culture of disasters and used as a concept to help raise the awareness to rethink social phenomena, especially disasters, through the keyword 'vulnerability.'