New Books In Anthropology

On March 11, 2011, a 9.1 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of northeastern Japan triggering a massive tsunami and shifting the earth on its axis. Nearly 20,000 residents in the Tōhoku region lost their lives, with many hundreds of thousands more injured, displaced, and left with horrific loss. Dr. Pilvi Posio shares her PhD research based on eight months of fieldwork in the town of Yamamoto in Miyagi prefecture, where 635 residents lost their lives. She began her research on long-term community recovery four years after the disaster, when national focus was shifting from recovery and restoration (fukkyū 復旧) to reconstruction (fukkō 復興 ). Learn how large-scale, government-funded initiatives, including the construction of three new compact cities away from the immediate coastal area, had the unintended effect of causing "reconstruction disaster” by aggravating resident anxieties and accelerating depopulation. In presenting her concept of Aspired Communities, Dr. Posio argues that community is best viewe