Radioactive citizens: reassembling life in post-Fukushima Japan =「輻射公民」 : 於後福島核災的日本重組生活 = レディオアクティヴ市民 : ポスト・フクシマで暮らすことを再構成する ; 「輻射公民」 : 於後福島核災的日本重組生活 ; レディオアクティヴ市民 : ポスト・フクシマで暮らすことを再構成する ; Radioactive citizens: reassembling life in post-Fukushima Japan = 'Fu she gong min' : yu hou Fudao he zai de Riben chong zu sheng huo = Redio akutivu shimin : Posuto Fukushima de kurasu koto o saikōsei suru ; 'Fu she gong min' : yu hou Fudao he zai de Riben chong zu sheng huo ; Redio akutivu shimin: Posuto Fukushima de kurasu koto o saikōsei suru

Ph.D. ; This dissertation examines the reconfiguration of citizenship necessitated by the challenges involved in retrieving livelihoods after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. I argue that the disaster induced the Japanese state to assemble technologies of decontamination and monitoring that fundamentally reconfigured the environment, along with the human and non-human lives co-inhabiting it. These technologies aim to arrange radiation into orderly patterns, thereby bringing a new sense of safety and security to the citizenry. In former evacuation zones, although the state pronounced it safe to resume normal life, some returnees found such a life elusive. To make life possible on their once-abandoned land, returning citizens decided to tackle radiation in their own ways. In Iitate, I trace the practices of groups of ordinary people and experts who came together with villagers to experiment with new forms of life in a landscape still infused with radiation. I introduce the concept of radioactive citizenship to contemplate their deployment of novel technologies that co-produce knowledge and practices aimed at grappling with the uncertainties of radiation. This concept also reveals citizens’ capacity to entangle themselves with the state in critical assessments of the risks of radiation, and thereby enact the crucial measures to protect their homes and families. Using ethnographic data related to farming and raising livestock, I show that radioactive citizens reconnect with soil, rice, cattle, wild boars, and the biota of an altered ecology through numerous recently invented practices. They co-constitute with each other new ways of carrying on with village life as they cope with radiation, and co-create a new livelihood that extends their ties across Japan and the world. ...