G229 Ito, T. & Goldstein, K. (2015, March). 東北の語り：災害救援における幸福のテーマ 第39回国際生命情報科学会(ISLIS)学術大会 口頭発表
1. 70 JournaJollnlernalional90tJIely01l助 Inlormalion9tJIence(19lI9) ((で吉司
よ Intl.Soc.LifeInfo.Sci. 陥 L33，No.1，March2015 11(~ 11
The391h身僻'PosiumonlifeInlormation9c.卸 '1CD 11押 )'J11
March14-15，2015，TohoUniversi，砂 OmoriMedicalCenter， Tokyo，Japan lLr""".)J
TohokuStories:IdentifyingHappyThemesofDisasterRelief
TakehikoIT01andKeithGOLDSTEIN2
1mαkoUniversityσbkyo，Japan)，
Z官leHebrewUniversity0/Jerusalem(Jerusalem，Israel)
Abstract:Howhavedifferenttypesofindividualsandorganizationsconducteddisasterreliefand
supportactivitiesthatmakepeoplehappyfollowingtheMarch11，2011disasters?Thispaperutilizesa
mixedmethodssurveyof1，659respondentsinvolvedincommunitysupportactivitiestouncoverthe
typesofactivitiesthatmakepeoplehappy.ThemeswereextractedusingBigML企omsemi-open
interviewswithlocalresidents，volunteers，andconcemedindividualsinthedisasterregions.Theresults
highlightthetypesofcommunitysupportprojectsthatgeneratepositiveexperiences.
Keywords:disasterrelief，information，happiness，narrative，philanthropy，textmining
1.Introduction
Thisstudyidentifieshappythemesofdisaster
relief following the Great East Japan Earthquake.
BeginningMarch11th，2011theregionofNortheast
Japan(Tohoku)sufferedachainreaction，tripledisaster:
earthquake，tsunami，andradiationleak.Intheaftermath
ofthedisaster，920，000volunteersassistedinthefirst
yearalone(Yamomoto2013).Thenumberofnon-profit
organizationshasmorethandoubledtoover40，000.
NumerousCSR(corporatesocialresponsibility)projects
and intemational aid organizations assist in these
eommu凶tysupportandreconstructionactivities.This
researchexaminedtheperceptionsofpeopleinTohoku
abouttheseactivities.Weaskedanopenendedquestion:
、Whataretheactivitiesoforganizationsorindividuals
thatassistthepeopleinthiscommunity?Weaimedto
bothevaluateandleamaboutpeople'sexperienceswith
suchactivities.Ourgoalwasnotonlyacademic.Rather，
wewishedtoassistorganizationsandpeopleinthe
disasterregion:topublicizethegoodthingsthatwere
takingplace，toenablethemtofurthertheirwork，andto
motivateotherstoengageinfutureendeavors.
The Storytelling Project aimed to provide
recognitiontothereconstructionsupportactivitiesof
groupsandindividuals.Indoingso，wealsoleameda
greatdealaboutthemesandsubthemesofdisasterrelief
activities.Thethemeswerederiveddeductively，using
exploratorystatisticalmethods.Thetheoreticalmodel
identifiedprovidestheacademiccommunitywithgreater
understanding of how disaster relief activities are
s仕uctured.Moreimportantly，itprovidesadminis仕ators
ofdisasterreliefwithexamplesofdisastersupport
activitiesthatgeneratehappyexperiences，projectsthat
canbesupportedandmimicked.
TakehikoITO. shimoebi@gmail.com www.ito拙 ehiko.com
WakoUniversity，Kanai2160，Machida，Tokyo195・8585，JAPAr呼.
2. Background
TheStorytellingProjectwasinitiallydevelopedby
GlobalGivingwiththegoalofcreatinga“reputation
system for philantmopy"，whereby communication
between donors，organizations and clients could be
facilitated by field based interviews (Maxson and
Kuraishi 2012). The initial storytellingprojectwas
conducted inKenya andUganda and succeeded in
gatheringapproximately58，000stories.Basedonthis
experience，MaxsonandKuraishisuggesttechnological
innovationsforeconomicalfeedbackcollection.Owing
bothtothefeedback企omtheA企icastorytellingproject
andtheex回 melytech-savvynatureoftheenvironment，
theJapanStorytellingProjectincorporatedanumberof
technological innovations. Severaltypesofmediums
were used for data collection: self-reported and
interview;phonesurvey，computersurvey，andpaper
form;localscribe，Japanesescribe，andforeignerscribe.
Eachformofdatacollectionhasitsowndeficienciesand
advantages.Respondentstendedtoprovideverybrief
storiesthatoftenreflectedadesirabilitybias.onthe
otherhand，interviews0食enemphasizedcurrentevents.
Theuseofself-reportsversusinterview-baseddataisa
hotly contested subject (polkinghome 2005). While
behaviorists generally rejected introspective data，
post-modemiststhrivedonit.Behavioristsclaimedthat
empiricaltruthwasbasedonmeasurablephenomenon.
Post-modemistscontendedthatthereisnosingulartruth，
andhencewhileperspectivesmaycontradictoneanother
they are justifiable data. These stories represe凶
individuals' perceptions ofthe truth. They discuss
individuals'experiencesasvolunteersandrecipientsof
disasterrelie王Thisresearchmoderatesbetweenthisfeud
ofsubjectiveand0句ective加 ths，delineatingamixed
methodssampling，underthesuppositionthatbyusinga
varietyofdatacollectionmethods，wecanarriveata
2. JournaJollnlernalionaJSociety01lileInlormalionScience(ISlI~リ F三語~
J.Intl.Soc.Li冷 Iゆ• Sci. 陥 'L33，No.1，March2015 11(t:[J.J11
71
The39.助喧rmposiumonlifeInlormalionScience IIC可)'J11
March14-15，2015，TohoUniversi砂OmoriMedicalCenter， おか0，Japan l~主主)J
closerapproximationofempiricaltruth.
Whenconductingresearchinadisasterregion，
thereisanexceptionallevelofsensitivityconcems.In
Japanindividualshaveaconceptionofwhatisknownas
Giri(responsibilityforreturningafavor).Hence，ifthe
respondents were askedtoprovide astoryofhow
someonehelpedthem，theywouldbeleftwiththe
feelingthattheywereweak，desti旬te，andshouldnow
dwellonthefactthattheyowea白vor.Whenconducting
research，anthropologistsjustasmedicalpractitionersare
boundbythelawofnon-maleficence.Hence，itwas
incumbent upon the interviewers to ensure that
respondentswouldfeelgoodaboutthestoriesthey
shared.Thisdeficiencyintheresearchquestionwas
identifiedearlyinapilotstudywithaidworkersand
academIcs. It was corrected by avoiding direct
questioningofhowothershelpedthemandfocusingon
the activities that they are personally orpresently
involvedin.Asaresult，theresultsdiscussprimarily
happy stories about disaster relief The task of
conductinginterviewsinadisasterregionisespecially
di伍 cult，sincetheinterviewerneedstogainthe佐ustof
thepeople，whooftenfeelthattheresearchisonlybeing
doneforthesakeofauniversity，apublication，ora
broadcast，andnotnecessarilyto help them. Often
scientific studies require structured interviews with
standardized questions，but researchers have often
recognizedthenecessitytocreateinformalconversations
forda旬 collectionσ釘 kes2011).Researchontsunami
devastated areas in particular requires using a
“questioningroute"bywhichsemI-s仕ucturedinterviews
canleadtoathematicanalysis(Fauciet.al2012).This
questioningroutefocusedfirstonthepersonalorpresent
story，and白enfollowedupbyaskingthemtoidenti命an
additionalstoryofcommunitysupportactivitiesthey
mayhaveseenorheardabout.
This research follows in the tradition ofthe
Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967). No
pre-givenhypotheseswereusedintheresearch.This
hypothesisdevelopmentmethoddi能 rs企om回 ditional
hypothesistesting，inthatno.givenpresumptionsare
made由atexistoutsideofthedata.Anexploratory
questioning企ameworkenabledtherespondentstotake
partinhypothesisgeneration.Thiswasaccomplishedby
usingopen-endedinterviewquestions，suchas‘howare
youinvolvedinsupportactivitiesinyourcommunity?"
However，the scribe often provided close-ended
questions，suchas“howmanypeoplecometo也eCity
Hallmeetings?"Inordertofacilitatetherespondents'
understandingofthepurposeofthequestioning，白e
initial a叩pp戸ro伺ac品h ofte阻n focused 0∞n 姐 e町ve阻nt or
org組 i包za侃甜t“io叩nt白ha幻.tthescribei包sv吋iお凶s討叫i託ti血ng忘:
a油bo側u凶t t恥h恥e 旬type白s 0ぱf volunteer activities 0ぱf tl刷lIs
organization? Why iおst白hi包sfes坑副t“i討val important?" Etc.
Following this initial story， the respondent was
encouragedtoprovideanadditionalstorythatwasnot
relatedtothesameorganization.
3. Purpose
Thepurposeofthepresentstudyistoreveal
themesofcommunitysupportactivitiesandtouncover
specific旬pesofactivitiesthatmakepeoplehappyby
analyzingthewordsusedinnarrativescollected企omthe
1apanStorytellingProject.
4. Methods
ThedatacollectionbeganinAugust2013.The
storieswerecollectedprimarilybymeansofaform，
containing12・15questions.Thisformisbasedonthe
stoηtelling forms used by GlobalGiving in A企ica
(M拡 son2012).Thestorieswerecollectedbyboth
bilingualandJapanese-onlyscribes.Bilingualscribes
simultaneously仕 組slatedinterviews，reviewingdetails
ofthe仕anslationwiththerespondent.Japanese-only
scribeslater位anslatedtheirstorieswiththebilingual
scribes. Storieswerealsooccasionallyrecordedand
relevantsections仕anscribed.Thestorytellinginterviews
attemptedtofocusondisasterrelief，buttherespondent
wasgivenlibertytoprovideanyinterestingstorythat
mightberelevant.Ingeneral，therespondentwassimply
askedtotellastoryaboutany勿peofcommunity
supportactivity.Thiscanbesomethingtheyhavedone，
received，orjustheardabout.Everyonehasastory，and
everystoryisimportant.
Fortheprese凶 S旬dy，1，659storieswereanalyzed.
Themostrelevantquestionforthecurrentresearchis
“howdoestllisstorymakeyoufeel?"411respondents
answeredthisquestion(24.8%).90ofthemcategorized
theirstoryas“happy"(21.9%).58%ofthestoriestook
placeinMiyagiPrefecture，10%inFukushima，8%in
Iwate，andtheremaining24%invariousprefec旬resin
andaroundTohoku.Owingtothelargescaleofsupport
from around the co四位y and evac瑚.tion to other
prefec伽res，Tohokusupportextendsbeyondjustthe
a:ffected areas.τ'he high representation ofMiyagi
occurredbecauseithasthehighestpopulationoftsunami
a:ffected p飽食cωres，the central role that Sendai，
Ishinomaki，andKesennumaplayedascentersforthe
research，andthelargenumberoforganizationsthatare
doingdisasterreliefactivitiesthere.Respondentswere
recruitedbysnowballsampling，aswellasnetworking
withlocalnon-profitorganizationsandindividualsinthe
disaster region. Emails and letters requesting
participationinthestorytellingprojectweresentto29
org姐 izationsaffiliatedwithGlobalGivinginJapanand
hundredsofnon-affiliatedNPOs.TheStorytellingTeam
(aμ 由escribes)alsogavelec岡 田 andworkshopsat
3. 72 JournaJofInternationalSocietyoflifeInformationScienceρ'SlIS) rrでま~
1.Intl.Soc目 L件 Iゆ• Sci 陥 1.33，No.1，Marclz2015 11(c...μ￨
The39，幼 砂mposiumonlifeInformationScience 1河 吋 ￨
March14-15，2015，TohoUnivers砂 OmoriMedicalCenter， おか0，Japan 阻三~J
schoolsanduniversities，afterwhichparticipantswere
interviewed or completed forms. Most importal1tly，
scribes volunteered with numerous different
organizations around Tohoku，doingev巴rything企om
debrisremovaltochildcare.Participatinginvolunteer
activitiesenabledthescribetoearncontactsandtrust
withlocal inforrnants.Notonlywasthestoηぺelling
projectaboutcollectingdata企ominformants，itwasalso
aboutglvmgsomethingbeyondacademicrecognition
backtothoseinformantsandcommunities.1nsummary，
theStorytellingTeamputalotofmuscleandsweatinto
collectingtheseinterviews.
ThedatawasanalyzedusingBigML(Dol1aldson
andDonaldson2012).BigMLisaclassificationsystem
designedforbigdatasets.Thismodelbuildsatree，
sirnilar to cluster analysis，whereby the correlations
b巴tweenwordsinthestoriescreatedistinctsubsetsthat
willminimizethesquarede汀 or(Donaldsonet.al2013)
Splitsoccurwhereonewordisconnectedtotwoormore
words that provide optimal predicting value. The
algorithm improves the model by adjusting the
coe伍 cients using a stochastic gradient descent
(Carpenter2008)，wherebythepredictivevalueofthe
modelisrecomputedbasedonthepartialresultsof
logistic regressions，but only converges when the
maximumlikelihoodofthemodelapproaches1.Further
1. ActMtj担誌 for
AduH且
9，5uppロrtbγ 円lE!a門年
ofinLemet
8;SiDrles什omValu '1 te 巴r~
quantitativeanalysiswasperformedbycategorizingthe
storiesaccordingtothethemesandsubthemes，then
examining the odds ratio of whether words that
correlatedwitheachsubthemewereincludedinstories
thatmadepeoplefeelhappy.
5. Results
Fig.1showsthe1巴sultsofaBigMLanalysisofthe
entir巴 dataset.11themesofcommunitysupportwere
identified.Eachthemewascategorizedadhocintothree
types:1)Stories(for)thatdiscussanactivitythattargets
aspecificpopulationor(at)thatfocusonaspecific
location;2)Stories(about)thatrelatedirectlytothe
disasteror(企om)thatinvolvevolunteerswhocameto
help;And3)stories(bymeansof)thatdiscussthe
technicalaspectsofprovidingsupport.Furtheranalysis
ofacωalstoriesthatrepresenteachcategoryrevealed15
subthemes. Since the exploratory analysis was
completedbasedonthewordsineachstory，thereisa
certainlevelofoverlapinthemesandsubthemesbutnot
intheactualwordsusedtodefineth巴m.Fig.2showsthe
themesandsubthemesfortheanalysis.Thesesubthemes
are important as they are later used to explore
correlationswithhappiness.
"Acti'，rIUes草t
Radl包tio-nCom:ert1li
。l忌苗与ter
Fig.1 BigMLanalysisoftheentiredatasetwith11themesandsubthemesofcommunitysupport
4. JournaJofInlernalional，タ'ocietyofl飾 'nformalionScience(ISU砂 「でま罰}
J.Intl.Soc.Lifelnfo.Sci 陥 1.33，No.1，March2015 11(t1..μl
The391h身mposiumonlifeInformalionScience Ilr可"J11
March14-15，2015，TohoUnivers砂 OmoriMedicalCenter， あわ玖 Japan 1哩三;;;VJ
73
Mental
Health
Kokoro(h聞は)
Therapists
Healthy
Drug
Psychologist
Depression
Counselling
Healing
Suffering
treatment
suicide
trauma
For At About From ByMeansOf
Corrト Tenト
Radiation
The Volun- Donat-
DisasterI teers
ThemesandSubthemesofStoriesaboutCommunitySupportActivities
1211ltin-i.E一戸し.
lJ J J J/J;pl
Fig.3 OddsRatioofStoriesThatMakePeopleFeelHappyFeaturingEachSubtheme
史
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円
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に
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i fh III-51 口二
Fig.4 OddsRatioofStoriesThatMakePeopleFeelHappyFeaturingEachWord
5. 74 JournaJ0110，脂'I'nationaJSolJIely01lileInlormationSlJIence(ISLIi.の Fヲ宮市
1.Intl.Soc.L供向(0.Sci. VoL33，No.1，March2015 11(t1.μl
The39.助 砂mposiumonlifeInlormationScience II(守))J11
胸 rch14-15，2015，TohoUniversi砂OmoriMedicalCenter， おか0，Japan lle'p:: I)J
Subthemesweredevelopedbasedonareadingof
thecommonwordsthatwere企equentlyusedinthestory
(Table1).Certainwordsthatwereespeciallycommon，
suchasvolunteering，associatedwithalmostallofthe
subthemesandwereexcluded.Thegoaloftheword
analysiswastocreatemutuallyexclusivesubcategories，
suchthattheycouldbecompared.Thewordswere
chosenbyexaminingthe企equenciesofworduseand
codingthemasbinominalvariablesaccordingtothe
subthemes.
The企'equencyofeachwordwascomputedbased
onthetotalstorylistandthestoriesthatmadepeople
feelhappy.Next，theoddsratiowascomputedbasedon
the企equencyofawordbeingincludedinthehappy
storiesdatasetdividedbyits企equencyinthetotaldata
set(Fig.3).Theresultsshow血attoolsweremostoften
featuredinhappystories.Toolsincludedwords，suchas
intemet，radio，newspapers，computers，andmedia.Art
wasalsohighlyvaluedinhappystories.Artincluded
words，suchaspainting，crafts，music，concerts，and
gardening. On the other hand， regulation and
collaborationmakepeopletheleasthappy.Regulation
includedwords，suchasgovemment，tax，andinsurance.
Collaborationincludedwords，suchasinteract，meeting，
and integration. Certain subthemes that were not
expectedtohavehappyfeaturesdid，suchasevacuation.
However，othersubthemesthatwereexpectedtobepart
ofhappystorieswerenot，suchassales.Theresults
highlighthowalotofhappystoriesinvolvepeoplebeing
involvedincommunitysupportactivitiesthatpromote
hands-onactivitiesandmedia.
Anidenticalana恥iswascompletedonjustthe
wordsinordertolookatspeci白cexamplesofhappiness
relatedactivities.Thereverseanalysiswasimpossibleto
conduct，astherewereavastamountofwordswi仕1no
mentionofhappiness.TheresultsinFig.4showthat
treatmenthadthehighestproportionofmakingpeople
feelhappy.Despitethenegativeimageryassociatedwith
mentalhealthinJapan，住ea加 lentdoesmanifestpositive
recollections.
6.Discussion
The Japan Storytelling Project is part ofan
ongoingglobale妊urttoproviderecognition，support，
andinformationaboutcommunitysupportactivities.The
StorytellingProjectrevealedtheimportanceofhuman
紺 'ength to recovery and the role of volunteer
interventions. Happy themes of disaster relief are
associatedwithparticipants'activitiesin仕eatmentand
紅t.Continuingresearchonthisdatasetshouldcompare
themesofcommunitysupportbetweenJapanandother
coun仕ies，extractingexamplesofactivitiesthatcreate
happyexperiences.Basedonthesepreliminaryresults，
weemphasizeaidworkerstofocusonartisticactivities
andempoweringpeoplewithtools，suchascomputers
andlanguage.
Acknowledgements
ThisresearchwasfundedbyGlobalGivingand
coordinatedbyIsraAidand耳SP.Wearetha出 向1toProf.
KathyMatsuiatSeisenUniversityforherencouraging
comments
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