Giulia Cavicchioli (UCL) - 2015-16 Students
giulia.cavicchioli.14@ucl.ac.uk

Surviving the disasters: Rebuilding life, narratives of refugees’ native place and the role of the media in post 3.11 disasters’ Japan

Through long-term fieldwork in Kyoto and Osaka, this project will explore how the disasters of 2011 have impacted the lives of the North Eastern Japan’s refugees. I plan to focus not only on how the refugees have rebuilt their lives in the temporary housing communities, but also how their dialectic with the landscape has changed. Through my findings, I hope to reveal the changing relationship between the refugees and their homeland (furusato). The study will follow ongoing anthropological debates about furusato, refugees, resiliency, media, language and power, identity and culture. The project will contribute to form a critical perspective on the social situation of refugees that also characterizes current dominant discourse in the UK and abroad.