Disaster, diaspora, and the construction of post-Kobe subjectivity: a cultural trauma narrative study of Murakami Haruki’s after the quake

How natural disasters are transformed into collective meaning crises through cultural mediation remains an underexplored question in cultural trauma studies. Although cultural trauma theory has generated significant conceptual advances since its foundational articulation, its empirical base remains predominantly anchored in Western contexts, and East Asian disaster experiences, particularly the mechanisms through which literary narrative participates in trauma construction, have been insufficiently theorised. This study introduces two analytical dimensions to Alexander’s cultural trauma claim-making model.

The first is indirectness, which demonstrates that absence and silence can function as effective claim-making strategies. The second is embodiment, which establishes that bodily practice constitutes a pre-discursive pathway of meaning reconstruction operating prior to the formation of discursive claims. The concept of the “post-Kobe subject” is proposed to theorise a dynamic mode of identity that neither reverts to pre-trauma stability nor remains permanently fragmented.

Employing Riessman’s narrative analysis framework in conjunction with Alexander’s cultural trauma theory, this study conducts a systematic analysis of Murakami Haruki’s short story collection After the Quake (2000/2002), examining the social construction functions performed by literary narrative in the cultural traumatisation of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake. The analysis yields three interrelated findings. Indirect narrative, defined here as the systematic avoidance of direct disaster representation, itself constitutes a form of cultural trauma claim-making.

The earthquake triggers a threefold diaspora encompassing spatial, relational, and meaning dimensions of social bond dissolution. Characters construct a dynamic form of identity, the post-Kobe subject, through embodied practice and narrative action within traumatic rupture. This study provides an empirical supplement to cultural trauma theory grounded in East Asian disaster experience and demonstrates the methodological potential of narrative analysis in cultural trauma research.

This work was supported by the Tianjin Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Project (Grant No. School of Foreign Languages, Tianjin University of Commerce, Tianjin, China The author declares no competing interests. This study is based on the analysis of publicly available literary texts and does not involve human participants, their data, or biological material.

No ethical approval was required as the research does not involve human participants, their data, or biological material. This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors. Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.