ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with the assertion that post-disaster research has been guided as much, if not more, by the imminent and powerful needs captured in the 'Apocalyptic Imaginary', and this has led to a dislocation from wider theoretical trends in the social sciences and humanities. It deals with the varying ways that 'disaster' and 'post-disaster' landscapes have been defined in relation to the politics of the 'Apocalyptic Imaginary'. K. E. Browne offers a rich narrative, set against a post-Hurricane Katrina landscape that was being restructured by outsiders, of a local African-American family's first-hand experiences of re-finding their security after nearly losing everything. What arises, instead of a temporality of rupture and detachment from a physically more haphazard landscape, is a reinvestment in the flows of kinship and connectedness, especially culinary rhythms from which the family drew comfort. The existential threat that regularly accompanies disaster compounds the unpredictable nature of affect and emotion in the post-disaster landscape.
