"This Is Truly My Favorite Place to Be": Buddhist Family Atmospheres in Secular Spaces

Since the triple disaster of 2011, parents in Fukushima Prefecture have been raising their children under a cloud of uncertainty about possible radiation in their environment. This article explores Buddhist responses to the precarity of these families as well as former Hansen's disease patients. Ethnographic research at a weeklong retreat for Fukushima families that Jodo Shinshu clerics host each summer at a former national leprosarium in Western Japan provides a ground-level view of the complex interaction between Buddhism, the state, and the suffering of its citizens. I argue that Buddhism provides the human and liturgical resources to create an environment of ease, joy, and comfort, giving participants a temporary "home." In addition, the retreat is intentionally cast as a space to criticize and recuperate power from a Japanese government that is not to be trusted.