Maternal responsibility and blame in technological disaster: radiation risk management as gendered labor after Fukushima

Abstract

State governance after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident created a culture of silence and tolerance surrounding radiation risk, and deliberately fueled the popular understanding that acting upon radiation-related concern was antithetical to national and regional economic recovery. Outright denial of danger by Japanese leaders, paired with loosened safety standards and limited state support for affected residents by way of guidance and compensation, led to a privatization of radiation risk management that placed responsibility for exposure reduction onto families while also constraining their action. Drawing on in-depth interviews and participant observation, this article explores how such dynamics fell most heavily on concerned mothers, who were far more likely to take on this additional realm of domestic labor and care work due to deeply ingrained norms of gendered labor and citizenship. Yet such maternal labor was not lauded as a valuable social contribution. Rather, concerned mothers found themselves in a double bind in which to care for their families through vigilant avoidance of potential risk was to betray the state. Risk mitigation came to require a significant amount of emotion work associated with not appearing overly anxious or paranoid, constantly assessing the risk perception of others, and at times suppressing concern and compromising on risk tolerance. The results of this study suggest that neoliberal models of environmental risk management, particularly in moments of high uncertainty surrounding the risk in question, can not only create internal, interpersonal, and community conflict but also exacerbate existing gender inequalities.