Building New Community in the Emergency Temporary Housing

The experience of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami tells us how affected people sought to reconstruct their lost communities through their own strengths in the recovery process from the disaster. This chapter, taking a case study of the activities of a women&s;s group to rebuild their community in a temporary housing unit, shows how such efforts by survivors themselves were made possible and what results they have led to. This group of women played a significant role in rebuilding the community in temporary housing during the early recovery stage; however, it was differentiated from the residents’ association, the official organization of temporary housing, and defined by the gendered division of labour. Through an analysis of the significance of this group of women in temporary housing, this chapter elucidates the possibilities and limitations of Micro Human Efforts (MHE) for self-help activities by disaster-affected persons during recovery from disasters.