People’s movement under the radioactive rain
Yoshihiko IKEGAMI
ABSTRACT March 11th in 2011, mega earthquake attacked North-Eastern Japan. It damaged the nuclear power plant located in Fukushima and the reactors went to meltdown. It is the biggest nuclear disaster next to the tragedy of Chernobyl. People living under the radioactive rain have stood up to confront this catastrophe in a peculiar way. People have rushed to the street to make a protest against the electric company and the government for the their safety. Furthermore, people have begun to learn about radiation through books and also from the experience of A-bomb victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and to measure the radiation. People have become scientists for their survival. This people's movement of measuring have got wider and wider.
KEYWORDS: tunami; nuclear accident; radioactive; people’s movement; inner exposure; atomic bomb; Fukushima
Author’s biography
Yoshihiko Ikegami 池上善彥 (1956-), joined the editorial office of Gendai-Shiso in 1991. From 1994 onwards, he served as the chief editor until 2010. Recent publications (in Japanese) include ‘Circular movements in the post-war Japan: tasks to open a third space’ (2008), ‘A free space and new subjectivity’ (2009), and ‘Stalinist culture in the post-war Japan’ (2010).