The Ruptures of Rhetoric: Cool Japan, Tokyo 2020 and Post-3.11 Tohoku

Abstract

Policymakers in Japan have adopted a discourse to link the Tokyo 2020 Olympics to the recovery of Japan’s northern Tohoku region following the March 2011 triple disaster (3.11). This discourse has created a dissonance between 3.11-affected communities, policy-makers and wider Japan. To understand this dissonance, this article explores the implicit agendas behind Japan’s Olympics efforts (such as positioning sports as a facilitator and symbol of recovery), its Cool Japan initiative (as a nation-branding and nation-building strategy) and other actions (such as labelling the 2020 event ‘the Reconstruction Olympics’). It then analyses the opinions of people from affected areas, gathered through interview research and from popular media, to demonstrate that the use of recovery rhetoric to promote the Olympics is being poorly received among some in 3.11-affected communities. Community concerns circle around availability of construction resources as well as the fact that recovery is not yet complete. This article contends that the events of 3.11, combined with the pursuit of the Olympics, has effected changes in the social imaginary and in regional ideas of belonging among 3.11-affected communities.

Keywords

• Japan
• 3.11
• contemporary
• Cool Japan
• nationalism
• rebuilding
• recovery
• Tohoku
• Tokyo 2020 Olympics