Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how the local surfers in post-disaster Fukushima continue to live with a "polluted" sea through leisure. To give texture to the multi-sensory materialities of "polluted leisure" the paper is accompanied by a collection of sounds, objects and images of the Fukushima coastline.

Paper long abstract:

On 11 March 2011 a magnitude 9 earthquake struck the north-east coast of Japan, triggering a 38-meter high tsunami and the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The offshore winds that day meant 80% of the nuclear fallout went into the sea. Following the disaster, land-based decontamination efforts have focused on collecting and removing 5cm of top soils around residential areas. To protect these coastal communities from potential future tsunami 440 discrete concrete seawalls spanning 405 km are currently being constructed. However, considerations of how Fukushima coastal communities continue to live with "polluted" seas—spiritually, aesthetically, and creatively—are limited. Many questions remain: How do people forge new modes of dwelling within, amongst and against post-disaster coastlines? What kinds of embodied, sensory and technological assemblages comprise new practices of living with polluted seas? To address these questions ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in 2017 to document the sounds, stories, images and sensory materialities to express what life is like for those who chose to stay and continue to live with a "polluted" seascape. Specifically, we take a closer look at how Fukushima's surf communities deliberate, experience and (re)engage with a polluted coastline through what we refer to as their "polluted leisure". To give texture to the multi-sensory materialities of polluted leisure the presentation is accompanied by a collection of sounds, objects and images collected and/or inspired by Fukushima's surfscape. The study strives to broaden understandings of doing and feeling leisure in increasingly polluted times and dying seas.