Acknowledgements

I received help from many different people without whom I could not have written this book. First, I want to thank my supervisors and members of the defence committee Martin Dusinberre and David Chiavacci, as well as my external examiner and later host at Harvard University, Ian J. Miller. At the University of Zurich, I am greatly indebted to David Aragai, Anne Aronnsson, Yasmine Berriane, Sayako Bissig, Ulrich Brandenburg, Nora Gilgen, Milena Guthörl, Namiko Holzapfel, Eliza Isabaeva, Helena Jaskov, Kamiya Nobutake, Melissa Kaul, Kuwayama Keiko, Gesine Krüger, David Möller, Simone Müller, Olga Rix-Isakov, Jonas Rüegg, Gonzalo San Emeterio Cabañes, Nadja Schorno, Raji C. Steineck, Hans Thomsen, Birgit Tremml-Werner, Judith Vitale, and Tobias Weiss.

I am also thankful to the Canon Foundation in Europe, which offered me a research fellowship for fieldwork in Sendai for half a year. During this time, I had the pleasure of working with Kawashima Shūichi, who invited me to the International Research Institute of Disaster Science at Tōhoku University. Furthermore, the following people supported me during my time in Japan, for which I will forever be grateful: Abe Fumihiko, Sebastien Boret, Ebina Yūichi, Julia Gerster, Hoshi Hirokazu, Hosoda Toru, Ikeda Naho, Imamura Fumihiko, Iuchi Kanako, Katō Hidehiro, Katō Koji, Kitakado Toshihide, Liz Maly, Nakamura Gen, Ōsumi Seiji, Saito Midori, Shōji Yoshinori, Takeuchi Kenji, and Uni Yoshikazu.

The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. The revision of my dissertation was also supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, whose financial contributions allowed me to become an associate researcher at Harvard University. Here, I would like to express my special gratitude to Hiraki Shiori, who helped me with polishing the translations of my primary sources. I also received additional support in various forms from David Armitage, Charlotte Ciavarella, Shayne Dahl, Andrew Gordon, John Hayashi, Kara Juul, Joshua Linkous, Youjia Li, Joanna Linzer, Keyao “Kyle” Pan, and Aaron van Neste. Over the years, I had the opportunity to discuss my preliminary findings with the many researchers: Akamine Jun, Jakobina Arch, Robert L. Brownell, William Clarence-Smith, Nadin Heé, Nathan Hopson, Iijima Mariko, Mariko Julia Jacoby, Ryan Tucker Jones, Paul Kreitman, Gregory Cushman, Raluca Mateoc, Corey Ross, Aike Rots, Sujit Sivasundaram, Bill Tsutsui, Lars Walløe, Johannes Wilhelm, and Noell Howell Wilson.

Last but not least, this study could not have been completed without the support of my family and my partner, Christa.