Analysis of disaster-prevention activities using the “Days-After” perspective

Abstract

This study attempted to analyze disaster prevention activities in Kuroshio Town, Kochi Prefecture, from the “Days-After” perspective, which is an attitude and way of talking about a disaster that has not yet occurred as if it has already happened. Days-After refers to a way of thinking and talking about a disaster that has not yet occurred not as a probability, but as something that will definitely happen in the future. It is a viewpoint that sees the occurrence of disasters as inevitable, and may cause people to give up on trying to prevent disasters. However, this study found that the Days-After perspective, which views the occurrence of a disaster as a certainty, transformed the residents of Kuroshio Town, who started exhibiting positive attitudes toward disaster prevention. Specifically, disaster-prevention activities in the Kaisho district of Kuroshio Town, Kochi Prefecture, including paintings about tsunamis created by the residents of Kuroshio Town, were analyzed. As a result, it was found that although there were conflicts over the assumption that a huge tsunami will occur during the process of learning that a future Nankai Trough earthquake is inevitable, the residents reflected on their own lives and rediscovered the value of daily life through the disaster-prevention activities, and imagined a future in which they survived the disaster.