Book review: Gender, Culture, and Disaster in Post–3.11 Japan, by Mire Koikari

Abstract

Registering 9.0 on the Richter scale, the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake (hereafter, 3.11 disaster) is one of the largest and most damaging in history. Gender, Culture, and Disaster in Post–3.11 Japan, by sociologist Mire Koikari, Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Hawai‘i, illustrates the interrelationship between cultural production and the Japanese government’s agenda to mobilise men, women and children in post-disaster national reconstruction. Comprised of six chapters, the book draws on key themes encompassing genderisation (Chapters 2 and 3), militarism (Chapter 4) and Japan’s past and present international relations (Chapter 5). This will not surprise anyone who is familiar with Koikari’s previous academic work traversing feminism, nationalism, security culture/securitisation and imperialism, all of which are recurring motifs throughout the book. Koikari illuminates post-3.11 disaster resilience building as a deeply politicised process embedded in the tenets of capitalism, neoliberalism and neoconservatism. Readers expecting this book to provide