Involvement of immigrants in community planning for disaster resilience: a prospect and paradigm

Yasuko Kobayashi, Hitomi Nakanishi

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

    Abstract

    This paper, focusing on the increasing number of immigrants in Japanese communities, purposes that a new paradigm is needed in the current Japanese community planning system to enhance capability and resilience to respond to the risk of disasters. The recent Tohoku region earthquake and tsunami in 2011 and Kumamoto earthquake in 2016 revealed that the current system has not considered the fact that those immigrants significantly lack knowledge and experience of disasters. This is making immigrants in Japanese communities vulnerable to disasters and is more of a critical issue than ever along with the increased size of the immigrant population. Japan is one of the most prepared nations in the world for disasters. However, immigrants and their vulnerabilities are overlooked in the current disaster mitigation scheme. This paper reviews the increasing risk of disasters, which is a global issue, and looks into the trend of immigrants residing in Japanese community. The paper concludes with discussion of a conceptual model that involves immigrants in community planning. We suggest that this approach would lead to the co-production of new knowledge and social capital that are important factors to enhance resilience.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationUrban Perspective: For citizens’ better Quality of Life
    EditorsIkuo Sugiyama
    Place of PublicationJapan
    PublisherQuality Design Institute Co., Ltd.
    Pages16-23pp
    Volume2
    Edition1st
    Publication statusPublished - 2017

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