Fostering the recovery process of disaster victims’ from “second loss” through the volunteer “photo restoration gathering” movement

Abstract

Following the East Japan Great Disaster and Tsunami in 2011, research have focused on the recovery of tsunami-damaged family photos by volunteers organizing “Photo Restoration Gatherings”. This research have by and large focused on the photos themselves, or the volunteers engaged in the recovery, but not the survivors. Few studies on disaster recovery have tended on how the narrative and the remembrance of pre-disasters may affect the survivors. This study examined how the survivors react to viewing family photos that had been recovered from the tsunami by volunteers of the photo restoration gatherings. This study was carried out over a year through fieldwork in gatherings in Noda village, a tsunami stricken area. Four ethnographies were conducted, demonstrating that during the recovery phase, the survivors suffered not only from “the first loss” consisting of physical loss of losing loved ones and possessions, but also from “the second loss” which was anxiety of losing the memories pertaining to the subjects of “the first loss”. This study reveals how the photo restoration gathering can counter “the second loss” through encouraging “collective memory” and “unintentional remembering”.