Hostname: page-component-55f67697df-twqc4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-08T14:14:02.673Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Harmonizing Cars and Humans in Japan's Era of Mass Automobility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Joshua Roth
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, one cannot help but ask why Japanese authorities long promoted an ambitious nuclear program that included over fifty reactors spread all over one of the most seismically active geological zones in the world, vulnerable not only to earthquakes but also to devastating tsunamis. However, other technological systems have been adopted in Japan and elsewhere despite their inherent dangers and high cost, and have come to be taken for granted as intrinsic to modern life. A comparison of nuclear power and the system of automobility raises the question of how people come to embrace different kinds of technological and social systems, and what sort of event or tipping point may push people in new directions. No one ever asks why the Japanese government has promoted the system of mass automobility. Yet since the 1960s, more than 500,000 people in Japan have died in traffic accidents (National Police Agency 2011). This is far more than the number of those who have died as a result of natural disasters over the same period of time. The number of Japanese injured in traffic accidents over those decades reaches almost 40 million (ibid.).

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 9 , Issue 45 , November 2011 , e3
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2011

References

Works Cited

Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2004. “Toward a Theory of Cultural Trauma,” (pp. 1–30) in Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, ed. by Alexander, Jeffrey C. et al. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
APJ Editors. 2011. “Protests: The 20 Millisievert Decision and the Future of Atomic Energy,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, May 8, 2011.Google Scholar
DeWit, Andrew. 2011. “The Earthquake in Japanese Energy Policy.” The Asia-Pacific Journal vol 9, Issue 13 No 1, March 28, 2011.Google Scholar
DeWit, Andrew. 2011b. “Japan's Richest Man Challenges Nuclear Future.” The Asia-Pacific Journal, July 4, 2011.Google Scholar
DeWit, Andrew. 2011c (forthcoming). “Japan: The Lucky Country (Maybe).” The Asia-Pacific Journal.Google Scholar
Fackler, Martin. 2011. “Japan to Cancel Plan to Build More Nuclear Plants.” The New York Times. May 11, Section A; Column 0; Foreign Desk; Pg. 8.Google Scholar
Takuya, Furukawa, How Japan's Low Carbon Society and Nuclear Power Generation Came Hand in Hand: The “Egoism” of TEPCO “Ecoism,” The Asia Pacific Journal, Volume 9, Issue 23, No. 2, June 6, 2011.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Gordillo, Gaston. 2002. “Locations of Hegemony: The Making of Places in the Toba's Struggle for La Comuna, 1989-99,” American Anthropologist 104(1): 262–277.Google Scholar
Hessler, Peter. 2010. Country Driving: A Journey through China from Farm to Factory. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Ikegami, Eiko. 2005. Bonds of Civility: Aesthetic Networks and the Political Origins of Japanese Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
IRTAD (International Traffic Safety Data & Analysis Group). 2010. “Road Safety 2010 Annual Report.” OECD International Transport Forum.Google Scholar
JAFNews May 1963 (v. 1 n. 5) p. 9).Google Scholar
JAFNews Nov 1967 (v. 5, n. 11), p. 8–9) ok.Google Scholar
JAFNews May 1968, p. 36–37 ok.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
JAFNews Dec 1969, p. 8–9 ok.Google Scholar
JAFNews Feb 1970, p. 45–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
JAFNews May 1970, p 22–23 ok.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
JAFNews January 1971, p. 20–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
JAFNews March 1979a, (v. 17, n. 2), p. 9–11 ok.Google Scholar
JAFNews Aug 1979b, v. 17, n. 8, p. 26–29.Google Scholar
JAFNews v. 18, n. 12, Nov 1980, 44–45.Google Scholar
Jain, Sarah Lochlann. 2004. “‘Dangerous Instrumentality’: The Bystander as Subject in Automobility.” Cultural Anthropology, vol. 19(1): 61–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Masaru, Kaneko. 2011. “The Plan to Rebuild Japan: When You Can't Go Back, You Move Forward. Outline of an Environmental Sound Energy Policy.” The Asia-Pacific Journal vol 9, Issue 14 No 2, April 4, 2011.Google Scholar
Katz, Jack. 1999. How Emotions Work. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Isao, Kumakura. 1999. Bunka toshite no mana-[Manners as Culture]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.Google Scholar
Kuruma no techo. 1970a. April. no. 76, p. 18–19.Google Scholar
Kuruma no techo. 1970b. May. no. 77, p. 18–19.Google Scholar
Kuruma no techo. 1970c. June. no. 78, p. 18–19.Google Scholar
Kuruma no techo. 1970d. July. no. 79, p. 18–19.Google Scholar
Kuruma no techo. 1970e. Aug. no. 80, p. 18–19.Google Scholar
Kuruma no techo. 1970f. Nov. no. 83, p. 37–40.Google Scholar
Linger, Daniel. 1993. “The Hegemony of Discontent.” American Ethnologist 20(1): 3–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MEXT. 2011. “Fukushima kennai no gakkou nado…” published on-line on April 19, 2011 here, last accessed June 1, 2011.Google Scholar
Miller, Laura, and Bardsley, Jan. 2011. “Manners and Mischief: Introduction.” Pp. 1–28 in Manners and Mischief: Gender, Power, and Etiquette in Japan, ed. by Bardsley, Jan and Miller, Laura. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Moret, Leuren. 2004. “Japan's Deadly Game of Nuclear Roulette,” The Japan Times, May 23, 2004, later republished on the Asia-Pacific Journal.Google Scholar
Murphy, R. Taggart. 2011. “3/11 and Japan: A Hinge of History?” The Asia-Pacific Journal. April 21, 2011.Google Scholar
National Police Agency. 2011. Keisatsu hakusho (Police White Paper) (last accessed July 11, 2011).Google Scholar
National Police Agency. 2009. Keisatsu hakusho (Police White Paper) (last accessed July 11, 2011).Google Scholar
National Police Agency 1980. Keisatsu hakusho (Police White Paper) (last accessed July 11, 2011).Google Scholar
National Policy Agency 1973. Keisatsu hakusho (Police White Paper) (last accessed Sept 7, 2011).Google Scholar
Nikkei Weekly, May 9th, 2011. “Kan Wants Hamaoka Closed”.Google Scholar
Nocera, Joe. 2009. “Risk MisManagement,” The New York Times Magazine, January 4, 2009.Google Scholar
Notar, Beth. 2010. “Performing Civility or ‘Flooring it!‘: Competing State Discourses of Mobility in Contemporary Urban China.” Paper presented at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings, New Orleans, 2010.Google Scholar
Notar, Beth. n.d. ““Let's Go F.B!”: Metaphors of Cars and Corruption in China”.Google Scholar
Kenzaburō, Ōe and Minear, Richard H.. 2011. “The Man Who Continues to Speak about Experiencing the H-Bomb – Exposed Clearly: the Deception that is Deterrence.” The Asia-Pacific Journal vol 9, Issue 15 No 1, April 11, 2011.Google Scholar
Oliver-Smith, Anthony, and Hoffman, Susanna. 2002. “Introduction: Why Anthropologists Should Study Disasters.” Pp. 3–22 in Catastrophe & Culture: The Anthropology of Disaster, ed. by Hoffman, Susanna and Oliver-Smith, Anthony. Sante Fe: School of American Research.Google Scholar
Ramseyer, J. Mark and Nakazato, Minoru. 1989. “The Rational Litigant: Settlement Amounts and Verdict Rates in Japan,” The Journal of Legal Studies, v. 18, n. 2 (June): 263–290.Google Scholar
Roth, Joshua Hotaka. 2012. “Heartfelt Driving: Discourses on Manners, Safety, and Emotions in Japan's Era of Mass Motorization.” Journal of Asian Studies, v. 71, n. 2 (March).Google Scholar
Roth, Joshua Hotaka. n.d. “Speed, and the Beautiful Morals of Giving Way: Gendered Discourses on Driving in Japan.”.Google Scholar
Roseberry, William. 1989. Anthropologies and Histories: Essays in Culture, History and Political Economy. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Sayre, Ryan. n.d. “Fragments from the First Few Weeks after the Tohoku Earthquake in Japan 3/11-3/26.”.Google Scholar
Seiler, Cotton. 2008. Republic of Drivers: A Cultural History of Automobility in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sumihara, Noriya. 2003. “Flamboyant Representation of Nuclear Powerstation Visitor Centers in Japan: Revealing or Concealing, Or Concealing by Revealing?” Agora: Journal Of International Center For Regional Studies, No. 1: 11–29. Tenri University, Japan.Google Scholar
Takeda, Kunihiko. 2011. 「原発深層流００１信用できる人、できない人 その１ 」 (Nuclear Power Deep Current 001—Those You Can Trust, Those You Can't, #1) http://takedanetcom/2011/04/post_0a1f.html).Google Scholar
John, Whitelegg, and Haq, Gary. 2006. “Vision Zero: Adopting a Target of Zero for Road Traffic Fatalities and Serious Injuries.” Stockholm: Stockholm Environment Institute.Google Scholar
Tanaka, Yuki and Kuznick, Peter 2011. “Japan, the Atomic Bomb, and the ‘Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Power’.” The Asia-Pacific Journal vol 9, Issue 18 No 1, May 2, 2011 (http://japanfocus.org/-Yuki-TANAKA/3521).Google Scholar
Tanase, Takao. 1990. “The Management of Disputes: Automobile Accident Compensation in Japan.” Law and Society Review 24/3: 650–689.Google Scholar
Williams, Raymond. 1977. Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wittner, Lawrence W. 2011. “How Japan Learned About “Nuclear Safety“: The Politics of Denial.” The Asia-Pacific Journal. March 24, 2011.Google Scholar
Yasu, Mariko. 2011. “Japan's Richest Man Takes on Atomic Future With Solar Plans.” Bloomberg June 14, 2011.Google Scholar
Shimbun, Yomiuri. 2011. 「首相退陣「当然だ」54%…読売世論調査」 (54% Think Prime Minister Should Resign… Yomiuri Survey) (2011 年6月4日読売新聞 link).Google Scholar