Anthropological Approach to Vulnerability and Major Hazards - Vulnerability of Coastal Ecosystems and Adaptation - page 284

From this perspective [SMI 06], all capitalization triggers something
like “constipation” of the social body, and the earth tremor appeared to
be “a powerful laxative of therapeutic virtue”. The events of the 11th
November 1855 were perceived as something that triggered the forced
restablishment of the circulation of riches, whether they were
accumulated by the merchant classes or by the government.
7.4.2. Incooporating the rise of globalization
The government was moreover criticized over a question that was
hitherto unprecedented for the archipelago. At the end of the 19th
Century, a new geopolitical order came to light, commercial and
cultural exchanges were structured on a global scale. The industrial
and political revolution accelerated the flow of people, ideas,
techniques and objects, and trade systems became widespread, over
the entire planet. Globalization was underway. Indeed, for nearly three
centuries, the archipelago had been “in quarantine”. It had closed its
frontiers to all forms of migration - no one went in, no one went out -
even though, for several decades, foreign boats regularly came to its
bays to solicit trade. More demanding and menacing each time,
Russian, Dutch, French and, above all, American governments put
pressure on the bakufu . They requested, then demanded the opening of
the territory. Commodore Perry's black ships, at anchor in the bay of
Tokyo, were the most famous and, and with the firing power of their
Paixhans canons, the most feared. There too, but on a geopolitical
scale this time, it was possible to interpret this isolationist politics
( sakoku ) as a stagnation of the “vital breath” ( ki ). In other words,
governmental politics with regard to globalization could also, from a
local point of view, have triggered the volcanic eruption. Analysis of
the media treatment of the event points toward this direction/meaning.
With a few very rare exceptions, all the prints published during the
month that followed the eruption of 1855 made no use of dragons -
until then traditional figures associated with earthquakes - but to
mythical catfish, the Namazus . One series of prints, which depicts the
Namazus as having a striking resemblance to Commodore Perry's
black ships, is significant [NOG 04, SMI 06].