Abstract
This research investigates survivors’ “Days-before narratives”. All of the narratives were told by disaster survivors who were requested to talk about their experiences on January 16, 1995, one day before the earthquake. “Days-Before narratives” are narratives, which mention experiences, not during a post-disaster, but a pre-disaster period, unlike conventional and typical narratives, which normally mention only about the days after a disaster. To investigate the structures of such narratives produced by “Days-before” style, qualitative and quantitative analyses have been made for 436 episodes, which were posted by disaster survivors to the website, called “Shinsai No Zenjitsu [The 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake: The Day Before],” organized by Kobe Shimbun. It was found that “Days-before” style attracted more diverse survivors than previous styles. It was also clarified that the structure of the narratives can be categorized into three categories: narratives directly connecting between pre-disaster and post-disaster periods, narratives including precursory quake reports during a pre-disaster period, and narratives referring to imaginary life-world which could have been realized, if the earthquake did not occur.
