The Disaster Memory Studies Lab explores how disasters are remembered by individuals, communities, and societies, and how disaster collective and cultural memory shapes—and is shaped by—social and cultural frameworks to better prepare for future disasters.
Drawing on insights from memory studies, this section examines the social processes through which certain experiences are preserved, commemorated, and institutionalized, while others are marginalized or forgotten.
Key questions include: Whose voices are remembered and transmitted as “lessons learned”? Which actors, such as survivors, educators, media, or state institutions, are involved in shaping disaster memory? And what narratives are omitted, silenced, or erased in the process?
By critically engaging with these questions, we aim to uncover how the history of disasters is constructed, and how memory practices influence risk awareness, disaster education, and long-term preparedness. In doing so, this section acknowledges the complexity of social vulnerability and the politics of remembrance.
The Miracle Pine in Rikuzentakata became a symbol of hope and resilience post 3.11
A mural in Futaba depicting the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Disaster
Disaster heritage sites are being preserved all across Japan
Diverse expressions of memorialization and disaster culture
The Miracle Pine in Rikuzentakata became a symbol of hope and resilience post 3.11
A mural in Futaba depicting the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Disaster
Disaster heritage sites are being preserved all across Japan
Diverse expressions of memorialization and disaster culture