Trauma, self-stigma, and visual narrative: participatory research in Shinchimachi, Fukushima, following Japan’s 2011 nuclear disaster

Abstract

This research employs visual narrative as a tool in processing past trauma and perceptions of an irradiated, contaminated and contagious stigma that created social barriers for residents of Fukushima Prefecture in a post-nuclear disaster context. Residents from Shinchimachi, a village 50km north of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, felt that the media’s limited portrayal of their village diminished their lived experiences and they began to be identified by the post-nuclear disaster narrative. This research seeks to determine if visual narration of their own story could empower trauma victims by allowing them to create the story they deem real, offering a space to converse in a small-group setting, and aiding their understanding of their shared experience. A gap exists in current participatory visual methods research, few delving into participants’ resulting internal changes. In the present study, participants’ visual narratives illustrated internal shifts: their memories of the disaster, concerns and hopes, and day-to-day realities of living with a stigma imposed by outsiders and their internalization of it. Findings argue for a new term, visual self-narrative, derived from photographs, captions and photo-elicitation interviews, in order to illustrate changes that occur from the reflective process of visually narrating one’s own story.