ABSTRACT
Kesennuma, a coastal fishing city in Japan’s Tohoku region, was significantly impacted by the massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. In an examination of that recovery, using the lenses of cultural landscape and interviews with residents, I explore how place identity and place attachment are evoked in, and integral to, the recovery process. I analyze four particular landscapes of recovery: response, optimism, memory, and adaptation. An understanding of how a place recovers in the aftermath of a disaster can illuminate the indelible role that place and place attachment plays in peoples’ lives.
