2023-11-17 Handing down memories of the earthquake and traditions of the community—the FY2023 Great East Japan Earthquake Archive Symposium will be held on January 8, 2024

The National Diet Library and the International Research Institute of Disaster Science at Tohoku University (IRIDeS) [external link] will cosponsor a symposium on the Great East Japan Earthquake Archive to be held Monday, January 8, 2024, a national holiday in Japan. Interested parties will be able either to attend the event at Tohoku University in Sendai, Miyagi, or to watch a live video stream online.

While archives dealing with the Great East Japan Earthquake have already been built in many communities, the construction and opening of archives in areas that suffered the greatest damage and took the longest to recover has only just begun. Many of the communities within the evacuation zone created in the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster have finally reopened and can be expected to create their own archives.

This symposium will start with reports on community efforts to record the disaster and to hand down local history and traditions as well as share information on the current status of and difficulties faced by these communities. It will conclude with a roundtable discussion by all speakers on the challenges faced by townspeople who must deal both with ongoing displacement and a constantly changing local landscape in handing down local history and traditions that include recording and memorializing the disaster.

For details, please see the Events page (in Japanese) on the National Diet Library Great East Japan Earthquake Archive website.