Nuclear Ghost takes us deep into the liminal zone of once evacuated, post-fallout Minamisōma, a town severely impacted by the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. “There is a nuclear ghost in Minamisōma” is how one resident described her mysterious experience following the accident. Investigating this nuclear ghost among the greying population, Dr Morimoto examines radiation’s shapeshifting effects. What happens if state authorities, scientific experts, and the public disagree about the extent and nature of the harm caused by the accident?

In this talk, moderated by Dr Steger, Dr Morimoto will talk about the disaster’s impact on modern Japanese society based on his fieldwork conducted between 2013 and 2019 in coastal Fukushima. More specifically, he will explain how natural and technological disasters and the resulting techno-sensory politics—half-life politics—of nuclear “things” impacted residents’ lives in post-fallout coastal Fukushima.

About the contributors

Ryo Morimoto

Dr Ryo Morimoto is a first-generation college student and scholar from Japan and Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Richard Stockton Bicentennial Preceptor at Princeton University. His scholarly work addresses the planetary impacts of our past and present engagements with nuclear things. He is currently researching the U.S.-Japan transnational history of disaster robots and an ethnography of decommissioning robots in coastal Fukushima. Morimoto is a facilitator of the Native undergraduate student-led project “Nuclear Princeton”.

Brigitte Steger (Moderator)

Dr Brigitte Steger (moderator) is an Associate Professor in Modern Japanese Studies at the University of Cambridge researching daily life and gender with topics ranging from sleep, cleanliness and tsunami shelter life to waste disposal and plastic carrier bag use. Her recent publications include ‘Japan Copes with Calamity’.