Table Of ContentWE ARE ALL SURVIVORS
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We Are All Survivors is reprinted with permission from “We Are All
Survivors,” special issue, Fabula: Zeitschrift für Erzählforschung/
Journal of Folktale Studies, volume 58, issue 1–2 (July 2017), pp. 1–121.
W E A R E
A LL SU R V I VOR S
Verbal, Ritual, and Material
Ways of Narrating
Disaster and Recovery
Edited by Carl Lindahl,
Michael Dylan Foster, and
Kate Parker Horigan
IndIana UnIversIty Press
CONTENTS
Preface / Michael Dylan Foster vii
1 I ntroduction: We Are All Survivors /
Carl Lindahl 1
2 I nto the Bullring: The Significance of “Empathy” after the
Earthquake / Yutaka Suga 27
3 R ebuilding and Reconnecting after Disaster: Listening to
Older Adults / Yoko Taniguchi 42
4 Th e Story of Cultural Assets and Their Rescue: A Firsthand
Report from Tohoku / Kōji Katō 55
5 C ritical Empathy: A Survivor’s Study of Disaster /
Kate Parker Horigan 82
6 E mpathy and Speaking Out / Amy Shuman 96
7 Th e Intangible Lightness of Heritage /
Michael Dylan Foster 113
8 D ocumenting Disaster Folklore in the Eye of the Storm:
Six Months after María /
Gloria M. Colom Braña 132
Conclusion: The COVID-19 Pandemic and “Folklife’s First
Responders” / Georgia Ellie Dassler, with
Kate Parker Horigan 163
Index 171
PREFACE
Michael Dylan Foster
This book is about disaster and recovery, about empathy, about
the tellable and the untellable, about listening and the limits of listen-
ing. Each chapter was written by a folklorist who explores—explicitly or
implicitly—the particular skills and attention that folkloristics can offer in
the wake of catastrophe. Most of these essays first appeared in a special 2017
double issue of Fabula: Journal of Folktale Studies edited by Carl Lindahl
and me.1 In that context, certainly, each article was meaningful when read
on its own—perhaps downloaded from a database or perused online—but
we suspected that very few people would read them one after another, as
overlapping, interacting elements of a broader discussion. So we are grate-
ful to Indiana University Press for allowing us to republish the original ar-
ticles here along with two additional chapters. We hope that in this format
the essays will be in productive, resonant conversation with one another
and that the book will be read cover to cover, adopted for classroom use,
and shared with colleagues and friends.
In assembling the current volume, Kate Parker Horigan, one of the
original contributors, joined us as a coeditor. Lindahl updated his introduc-
tion, and several authors amended short afterwords to their chapters. We
also added an illustrated essay on Hurricane Maria and a brief conclusion
on how folklorists are documenting the COVID-19 pandemic. These two
additional chapters reflect another reason we were determined to share this
work now in book form: in the five years since the Fabula publication, we
have been reminded constantly that the subject of disaster is persistently,
increasingly, frighteningly relevant to us all.
In his introduction, Lindahl explains the origins of the haunting
phrase we use as the book’s title: “We are all survivors.” It is impossible
for these words not to feel all the more poignant right now, as literally ev-
ery human on the planet copes with the most devastating pandemic in a
vii
viii | Preface
century. But the very extent of the pandemic also reminds us that each of
us, in our separate isolation, experiences it differently. For all its random-
ness, disaster (and recovery) rarely affects people equally. Often it lays
bare the biases and fissures of our communities, highlighting structural
and economic inequities, exacerbating existing prejudices of race, gender,
religion, and other factors. Although we may all be survivors, our distinct
and often incompatible experiences of the “same” disaster drive home the
difficulties of sharing our stories, reminding us of the challenges of em-
pathy.
Even before the pandemic, it was already evident that disaster would
touch all our lives in powerful yet disproportionate ways. Extreme tem-
peratures, catastrophic storms, droughts, floods, rising sea levels—all these
symptoms of the climate crisis punctuate the news cycle, bursting into
public attention and just as quickly fading from the spotlight, even as the
survivors begin a long struggle. When I first became involved in this book
project, I had never done research in disaster-affected areas. But now I live
and work in Northern California, and like hurricane season in the Atlan-
tic, the annual wildfires in the western United States threaten to normalize
disaster. In the fall of 2018, a fire ravaged the town of Paradise, killing at
least eighty-five people. In Davis, where I live, one hundred miles to the
south, drifting smoke darkened the skies for weeks. The air was heavy with
the odor of burning—we were literally inhaling the remains of forests and
homes and people—and a layer of gray ash coated the landscape. Classes at
my university were canceled for two weeks. The experience made clear once
more the unequal ramifications of disaster: death and devastation in one
community was, for those of us only a few hours away, nothing more than
several weeks of unpleasant living conditions. But it also made me realize
the ubiquity and inevitability of disaster: now every year, my neighbors and
I prepare for the likelihood of smoke-filled air and, possibly, fire. We are
ready to evacuate our comfortable suburban homes, with emergency bags
packed at all times.
The discussions in the chapters that follow reflect only a miniscule sam-
pling of how people experience and narrativize disaster and its aftermath.
But our objective in this book is certainly not to be comprehensive or even,
for that matter, representative. Rather, we hope that from the particulars
in these essays, readers will extract insights and tools, both theoretical and
practical. But mostly, by offering folkloric perspectives on a subject that,
Preface | ix
sadly, is here to stay, we want to inspire discussion, exploration, connec-
tions, and new questions.
* * *
The editors would like to thank Walter de Gruyter GmbH for granting us
permission to reprint articles from Fabula, and Indiana University Press—
especially Gary Dunham and Nancy Lightfoot—for working with us to pro-
duce this book. Great thanks also to Vinodhini Kumarasamy at Amnet for
shepherding us through the production process. For publication assistance,
we are grateful to the Research Committee of the English Department of
the University of Houston, and the Office of Research and the Dean’s Office
of the College of Letters and Sciences at the University of California, Davis.
We also thank the panelists and audience members of the 2012 American
Folklore Society’s annual meeting in New Orleans, during which many of
these essays started to come together. Finally, we are profoundly indebted
to the volume contributors and to all who shared their stories and insights
with us and with them.
Note
1. Carl Lindahl and Michael Dylan Foster, eds., Fabula: Zeitschrift für Erzählforschung /
Journal of Folktale Studies 58, no. 1–2 (July 2017): 1–121.
