Nuclear Disaster at Fukushima Daiichi: Social, Political and Environmental Issues by Richard Hindmarsh

Author:Richard Hindmarsh [Hindmarsh, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Public Policy, General, American Government, National, Environmental Policy
ISBN: 9780415527835
Google: t0CYuAAACAAJ
Goodreads: 16233821
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-01-15T11:43:12+00:00

HUMANITARIAN HACKERSPACE WORKSHOPS IN TOKYO

The transformation of consumers of data into public actors was done not only by data sharing practices but also through building and developing open source tools, as in the Tokyo Hackerspace workshops. The importance of the open source hardware as a novel response to the disaster was apparent from the online materials related to the Tokyo Hackerspace events (Akiba 2011, Reuseum 2011). Almost immediately after the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, which informed Fukushima, and during the ensuing disasters, Hackerspace members held several meetings to discuss how to help affected areas. The first humanitarian hardware project of Tokyo Hackerspace, the Kimono Lantern Kit, was a solar rechargeable lamp originally designed as a decoration for gardens. It was quickly mass produced and distributed in areas suffering blackouts.

This form of local activism was later termed ‘Humanitarian Open Source Hardware’ (Akiba 2011). The lantern project served as a model for developing the subsequent DIY radiation sensing devices of various DIY Geiger counters (e.g. iGeigie, the iPhone Radiation Dock, and the Ion Chamber Radiation Detector Kit). The following is a description of one of the first Hackerspace meetings, which demonstrates the close connection between attempts to design open source hardware tools and activist ambitions to help affected areas. It expresses the motivation and empathy mixed with very practical concerns on what is needed in terms of technical, financial, and other support:

In the hackerspace, we'll be holding our meeting tonight and will probably start hammering out plans to figure out how and where we can help…. So although it's outside the original sphere of intended use, it looks like the simple Kimono lanterns we designed can play a small role in providing comfort and at least give a small feeling of safety to people that are going through this horrific experience…. I've updated the files to v1.1 and the package includes the BOM and full gerbers. It's a turnkey package that can be taken and sent directly to the PCB fab. (Akiba 2011)

Bringing the open source lamp to the people in affected areas was thus not a simple utilitarian task but more an attempt to provide a feeling of safety after trauma, to give a feeling of personal control over the circumstances. It is an example of what is referred to as a ‘fetish’ function of humanitarian hardware, which is even more pronounced in the case of the DIY Geiger counters. Like indigenous culture fetishes, these objects have almost a ‘magical power’ to provide comfort in times of uncertainty and hazard. People monitoring radiation around their houses and neighborhood are aware that they are not protected from the physical effects of radiation but at least psychologically and mentally they feel protected from the uncertainty and chaos and hold onto the hope they can manage and improve their circumstances. The DIY radiation monitoring devices simply enabled a psychology of basic control and comfort (as well as practical outcomes), also related to a feeling that people were not alone but had the support of a global community.

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