Affective dark tourism encounters

Rikuzentakata after the 2011 Great East Japan Disaster

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3977271
AutoresAnnaclaudia Martini (0000-0001-5059-7368, University of Groningen), C Minca (0000-0001-6619-6614, Macquarie University, autor correspondente)
Ano2021
Volume22
Fascículo1
Páginas33-57
Data de publicação2021-01-02
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoSocial & Cultural Geography (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1464-9365 • E-ISSN: 1470-1197
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14649365.2018.1550804
OpenAlexW2885028203
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas17
Referências citadas93

This article discusses the case of Rikuzentakata, a town almost completely destroyed by the 2011 tsunami provoked by the Great East Japan Disaster. It shows how the town has directed some of its recovery efforts toward the development of a specific form of post-disaster tourism. Two main strategies implemented by the local authorities are analyzed in detail: first, the celebration of Ipponmatsu, or the Miracle Pine, a symbol of resilience in the face of devastation; second, the promotion of Rikuzentakata as the ‘Hiroshima of the North’. Both these discourses were based on the engineering and the apprehension of specific affective post-disaster atmospheres and perceived by residents and local authorities as key for attracting international visitors. Our analysis highlights how a politics of affect built around the tsunami has been spatialized and grounded using material landmarks (The Miracle Pine), but also narratives of hope and resilience based on comparisons with Hiroshima. Such affective atmospheres, we conclude, were planned and performed as an attempt to facilitate cross-cultural communication and allow visitors to contemplate death and disaster on their own terms, while at the same time involving them in a broader processes of healing from trauma and recovery for Rikuzentakata and its residents

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · China · Dark tourism · East Asia · Economic geography · Economics · Economy · Geography · Tourism · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Japanese History and Culture · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration