Conflicting Immunities: Priorities of Life and Sovereign amid the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster

Abstract

Through an analysis of two artistic works, a fiction film titled Kibō no Kuni (Land of Hope) (script/direction Sono Shion 2012), and a theatre performance titled Infant by Gekidan Kaitaisha (2013), this paper explores the increasing visibility of the structures of power which support the communities affected by the March 11, 2011, earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster in northeastern Japan. The paper suggests that there has been an attempt to resolve the contradictions between biological and political/economic forms of immunity that have emerged by asserting the necessity of national/military forms of immunity as mechanisms to minimise short-term economic hardship, but which may have dire long-term consequences.