Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
12-2021
Abstract
Any policy requires a ‘frame’ and, by the same token, entails an ‘overflow’, externalizing a certain part of the world as irrelevant. This mundane business of policy framing and overflowing became an urgent matter of concern in Japan in March 2011, as the Fukushima nuclear disaster exposed how the existing frame of nuclear safety had permitted the fatal overflow of severe accident management. In fact, despite the creation of the new regulatory agency in September 2012, the post-Fukushima frame of nuclear safety continued to externalize off-site evacuation planning – a key component of severe accident management – until March 2015. To explain such persistence of the overflow, I borrow the concept of ‘sociotechnical imaginary’ from the policy-oriented strand of science and technology studies and infuse it with hermeneutical rigor of the strong program of cultural sociology. Specifically, I illustrate how the trajectory of Japan’s nuclear safety was decisively shaped by the pacifist imaginary and the safety myth, organized around the binary opposition ‘sacred = civilian use = safe vs. profane = military use = dangerous’, without reducing this deeper cultural logic of framing and overflowing to the political economy of nuclear energy or the global isomorphism of nuclear technology.
Keywords
cosmology, Fukushima, science and technology studies, sociotechnical imaginary, strong program
Discipline
Asian Studies | Science and Technology Policy | Science and Technology Studies
Research Areas
Sociology
Publication
Cultural Sociology
Volume
15
Issue
4
First Page
486
Last Page
508
ISSN
1749-9755
Identifier
10.1177/17499755211001046
Publisher
SAGE Publications (UK and US)
Citation
SAITO, Hiro.(2021). The sacred and profane of Japan’s nuclear safety myth: On the cultural logic of framing and overflowing. Cultural Sociology, 15(4), 486-508.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3408
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1177/17499755211001046
Included in
Asian Studies Commons, Science and Technology Policy Commons, Science and Technology Studies Commons