Development of voluntary organizations and multi-layered local communities: A case study of a local disaster volunteer group in Midori Ward, Nagoya, Japan

Abstract

Over the last few decades, geographically and socially small communities, like neighborhoods and local communities, have been expected to assume public roles in post-welfare-state society. However, the meanings and structures of local communities vary across time and place. In Japan, local groups based on territorial bonds like residents' associations have mostly organized local communities or chiiki (literally region or area in Japanese, but also a term for local community) in a geographically and organizationally hierarchical structure. However, voluntary organizations have also recently assumed roles in local communities (chiiki), and many studies suggest that changes in society, families, and individuals have weakened territorial bonding groups like residents' associations. In this case, it is necessary to understand how the geographical and social characteristics of voluntary organizations differ from those of territorial bonding groups. Moreover, emerging voluntary organizations are less comprehended than territorial bonding groups in the way of how to assume role in local communities. This study explores how newer voluntary organizations overlay and affect existing local communities formed by territorial bonding groups like residents' associations, by examining a local disaster volunteer group-Nagoya Midori Disaster Volunteer Network (NMDVN)-established in 2004, in Midori ward, Nagoya, Japan. First, this study traces how people join NMDVN and how the local disaster prevention activities have expanded. Second, the study considers how we understand the ways that NMDVN overlays and affects existing local communities. Many members joined NMDVN after attending the local government's training programs for disaster volunteering and disaster prevention. They had various motivations and triggers to attend the training programs and to join NMDVN. And, some of participants were not so much interested in disaster prevention activities. Rather, they were motivated by the opportunities to initiate local activities or to acquire knowledge or information about disaster (prevention) to improve other local activities. Consequently, these motivations have enriched NMDVN's activities. When NMDVN was established in 2004, mainly by some residents of Midori ward who had attended the local government's training programs, it did not have any connection to local communities. Thus, disaster prevention activities were difficult to perform. However, NMDVN has successfully expanded its activities by collaborating with public institutions and local networks of members who had various interests rather than disaster prevention. Consequently, by these activities at the local or neighborhood level, NMDVN was able to reach people whom existing territorial bonding groups like residents' associations, were unable to do. Furthermore, NMDVN's activities cannot be categorized as a form of existing local activities, performed mainly by territorial bonding groups. Finally, as for overlaying or affecting existing local communities (chiiki) based on territorial bonding groups, NMDVN complements these group's activities to some extent, while it also conducts newer community activities based both on networks beyond territorial bounds and on existing local communities formed by territorial bonding groups. Additionally, NMDVN's local activities have networked with its various voluntary activities in other places across the country. Therefore, these multi-layering or diversification of local communities should be also recognized as a movement linked to places beyond specific local communities.