2026 年 21 巻 4 号 p. 757-758
Disaster recovery is often discussed in terms of physical and social infrastructure, housing, urban and community reconstruction, economic recovery, livelihood restoration, and psychosocial recovery. The concept of life recovery, however, was developed in Japanese disaster research to offer a broader theoretical and methodological perspective. It originated in qualitative studies that identified the seven critical elements of life recovery after the 1995 Kobe Earthquake and was examined through longitudinal programs following both the 1995 Kobe Earthquake and the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake [1,2]. These studies conceptualized “life” not as an individual psychological state, nor as the simple sum of sectoral outcomes, but as a dynamic field of interaction between persons and their physical, social, institutional, economic, and cultural environments. In this sense, life recovery represents a distinctive and internationally relevant contribution of Japanese disaster sociology that integrates theoretical innovation, methodological development, field-based implementation, and policy relevance.
This special issue examines post-disaster life recovery and inclusive disaster risk reduction from this perspective. It begins with methodological advances in longitudinal research on life recovery, demonstrating recovery as a long-term, multidimensional, and socially embedded process. This perspective is extended through residential mobility research, which bridges life recovery and recovery planning by examining how household relocation, community transformation, and spatial restructuring interact, thus reframing relocation as a pathway toward transformative adaptation, instead of as a mere planning instrument.
The following contributions deepen the social and institutional dimensions of disaster research. Disaster ethnography is positioned as research infrastructure for documenting lived experiences and situated knowledge. The 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake is examined as a structural vulnerability in an aging rural society, where demographic aging, depopulation, infrastructural fragility, care dependence, culture, and gender shape impacts and early recovery. A further contribution traces the institutionalization of collaborative disaster victim support in Japan, focusing on the third sector, disaster volunteer centers, and Disaster Case Management as mechanisms for reconnecting peacetime care with emergency support.
The final two articles examine inclusive disaster risk reduction in Ecuador, analyzing curriculum-based capacity development, stakeholder involvement, and the co-production of standard operating procedures as foundations for standardized governance, instead of a one-way transfer of the Japanese experience. Taken together, the articles indicate that recovery requires methods that follow people’s lives over time, institutions that connect fragmented systems, and collaborative capacities sustained across places and scales.
Finally, it should be acknowledged that life recovery emerged through sustained dialogue led by the original research team, comprising Haruo Hayashi, Kishie Shigekawa, and Satoshi Tanaka, and benefited from Japan–U.S. collaboration with Kathleen Tierney, Joan Nigg, and the late William “Bill” Anderson.
References:
[1 ] S. Tatsuki, “Long-term life recovery processes among survivors of the 1995 Kobe Earthquake: 1999, 2001, 2003, and 2005 life recovery social survey results,” J. of Disaster Res., Vol.2, No.6, pp. 484–501, 2007. https://doi.org/10.20965/jdr.2007.p0484
[2 ] S. Tatsuki and F. Kawami, “Longitudinal impacts of pre-existing inequalities and social environmental changes on life recovery: Results of the 1995 Kobe Earthquake and the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake recovery studies,” Int. J. of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, Vol.41, No.1, pp. 94–120, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1177/02807270231171504
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