Changing Narratives of Survivors of the 2014 Hiroshima Landslide

The purpose of this study is to understand the fluidity of survivors’ narratives and to clarify the changes such narratives undergo after time has elapsed. Nineteen survivors of the landslide disaster that occurred on August 20, 2014 in Hiroshima City were interviewed twice-three years after the disaster and five years after the disaster-and the changes in the content of their narratives were analyzed. In addition, by analyzing the titles of newspaper articles that were published within one month of the disaster, the characteristics of narrative transformation were quantitatively identified. The narratives of disaster victims that were once accepted as “dominant stories” become “personalized” as “alternative stories” with the elapse of time, even though they are told by the same person. Comparisons of two interviews conducted at different times show that the word “evacuation” undergoes a significant change in context over time elapse, while the word “disaster” appears in a new context in the fifth-year interview. While social or community groups are the bearers of “socialized” memories, individuals are the bearers of “personalized” memories which are expected to continue to change as time elapses. It is necessary to examine what should be shared in order to utilize disaster victims’ memories to prevent and mitigate disasters, and how to such memories should be shared.

Between Emotion, Politics and Law: Narrative Transformation and Authoritarian Deliberation in a Land Dispute-triggered Social Drama in China

Through studying a revenge murder triggered by a land dispute in China and the subsequent trial, this article explores “narrative transformation” in a social drama and proposes an event-based model for authoritarian deliberation. It argues that an obscure murder rose to prominence because it came to be narrated as a different kind of story. Initially viewed as “a normal killing,” it was transformed to represent a “contest” between a law-and-order frame, which emphasizes individual guilt, and a righteous-revenge frame, which symbolizes wider conflicts. The article also contends that in the absence of an institutionalized issue forum, contentious events present a model for authoritarian deliberation. That is to say, deliberation is often pegged to social dramas on the “judicial periphery,” thanks to a liminal phase inviting reflexivity, and exposes elite dissent that is otherwise veiled by an interest-driven alliance. In this case study, the media engaged with other institutions in contentious performances that affirmed hidden social fault-lines but also encouraged deliberation.

Vulnerabilitätsmetaphern und Narrativierungsstrategien in den ›Offenbarungen‹ und der ›Vita‹ Elsbeths von Oye

Due to highly unstructured, redundant, and ambiguous descriptions of bloody self-flagellations by the writing self, the ›revelations‹ of Elsbeth von Oye present themselves as a challenge for research. Elsbeth’s ›vita‹ however seeks to eliminate those bewildering elements and repositions many textual passages. Considering both texts, this article examines the approaches for narrative transformation as well as the deliberate refusal of making narrative sense. While the reorganization of the material in the ›vita‹ has a strong impact on the creation of a narrative sense, the ›revelations‹ seem to purposely decline narrative patterns to build a concept of holiness, which orientates towards legendary texts.