I have a new publication in the latest issue of Japan Forum, titled “From Volunteers to Voluntours: shifting priorities in post-disaster Japan.” It relates in part to my annual Field Studies in Japan module in that in the paper I try to answer critics who suggest I would do my students more good if I led them on voluntours to areas affected by Japan’s 2011 disasters. The paper can be accessed at this link, or you can contact me directly for a copy: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/VgymC75rCYbdmcdrfkWm/full

Abstract: This paper analyses the emergence of post-disaster ‘voluntours’ following Japan’s 2011 disasters. An overwhelming, yet haphazard volunteer response to previous disasters spurred extensive collaboration between the state, relief organizations, and would-be volunteers in the wake of 3.11. However, when mapped onto to the massive devastation of the 3.11 disasters, this collaboration almost immediately turned many post-disaster volunteers into ‘voluntourists’, a problematic category commonly associated with visitors from the Global North volunteering for social and environmental causes while on holiday in the Global South. Japan’s post disaster voluntours demonstrate how uncoordinated and potentially risky volunteers have been channelled into a carefully-controlled and long-term response that satisfies people’s desire to help disaster victims, while ultimately encouraging tourism (sans volunteering) as the most desirable form of disaster recovery assistance. This shift toward voluntourism potentially undermines post-disaster volunteering and threatens to trap parts of Tohoku, like other disaster sites, in a position of permanently ‘post-disaster’.