How are families raising healthy children in post-nuclear Japan?

When a disaster happens it quickly makes the news but just as quickly can disappear from mainstream media. When Fukushima happened in 2011 the world paused and took notice but what about the aftermath? How were people coping and particularly, how were parents raising children after such a disaster? What were the risks of an unhealthy environment due to radiation? Living in the ruins of nuclear risk is a demoralizing situation for all parents involved. 

Jieun Cho, Ph.D. candidate in cultural anthropology at Duke University, is researching the connection between children’s health, everyday life, and the ethical and political imagination in post-nuclear Japan. Her dissertation project focuses on what she calls ‘anxious care’ in looking at tension between official governance and everyday life. Tracing caring practices in and beyond the child-raising families living in Fukushima, her ethnographic research explores how families choose to raise children living in environments exposed to high levels of radiation.  Read More.