ABSTRACT
Introduction The restoration and redevelopment of Fukushima after the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident of March 2011 will be a difficult and complicated task. This process, however, can be aided by geographers and other scholars who are familiar not only with the local circumstances in the Tohoku region, but who are also familiar with the lessons of geographic scholarship in similar contexts. One of the important insights of research in other contaminated places is that people’s experiences of contamination and disaster can be extremely varied depending on a person’s identity and social location. Women experience contamination differently from men. Farmers experience contamination differently from urban residents. Parents experience it differently from children. Government planners experience it differently from schoolteachers. While most people in Fukushima are aware of this fact, these differences are often not taken seriously enough when planning for the clean-up and redevelopment of contaminated places.
