Cross-cultural Communication Through Affect: The Potential for Postdisaster Tourism in Japan

Abstract

The success of tourism encounters can be aided by devising cross-cultural strategies so that conscious feelings (emotions) and subtle impressions (affects) of locals are communicated effectively to tourists. This article investigates how postdisaster tourism narratives, practices, and landmarks can be used to "attune" the feelings of culturally different groups. After the Triple Disaster of 2011 in the Tōhoku region of Japan, the recovering communities have used tours as a way to support the local economy, confront their loss, and overcome trauma. As global attention moves to new disasters, communities feel the need to attract more visitors and create new jobs for the locals. However, this has proven difficult: differences in expressing emotional responses caused tensions and dissatisfaction among locals and internationals, as locals feel misunderstood and tourists do not see their expectations met. This hinders the tourist encounter, which is seen by some of the communities as crucial, as they feel that "being able to tell their stories" and "being remembered" is a central tenet of the recovery process. In the case of Japan, we argue, affect can constitute an appropriate means to negotiate meaning and memory between Japanese and internationals. Affective elements are often overlooked by academics, as they are considered volatile and unstructured. There is no research that utilizes geographical and interdisciplinary theories of affect to gain an in-depth understanding in the ways to communicate heritage and memory cross-culturally in disaster sites, as well as rigorous and appropriate approaches to affective methods. Affect can benefit both locals and visitors, as it bridges understandings of the delicate and complex issues pertaining to disaster memory and heritage, and may lead to more socioculturally and politically sustainable approaches to planning, development, and management of tourism.