Ryo Morimoto Receives 2025 Modern Japan History Association Prize for Nuclear Ghost

The Department of Anthropology at Harvard University is pleased to share that Assistant Professor Ryo Morimoto has been named the 2025 Modern Japan History Association Prize Winner for his book, Nuclear Ghost: Atomic Livelihoods in Fukushima’s Gray Zone (University of California Press, 2023).

Based on nearly a decade of participant-observation fieldwork in the irradiated coastal fallout zone of Fukushima prefecture, Nuclear Ghost examines the social, political, and historical dynamics shaping life in the aftermath of the 2011 “triple disasters.” Drawing on insights from indigenous studies, the book analyzes the concepts of “victimhood,” “harm,” and “compensation,” and considers how various actors—including scientists, scholars, artists, technocrats, and social workers—have influenced local experiences of recovery.

Morimoto introduces the analytic framework of “atomic livelihoods,” focusing on how individuals and communities work to rebuild their lives, relationships, and environments in the wake of large-scale disruption. The book also situates contemporary experiences in the longer history of northeast Japan, including its treatment as a marginalized internal “colony.”

The Modern Japan History Association Prize recognizes outstanding scholarship in the field of modern Japanese studies. Congratulations to Professor Morimoto on this notable distinction.