This article contributes to research on community resilience by
discussing the relationship of sense of place and social capital. On
11 March 2011, Japan was struck by the Great East Japan Disaster, also
known as the 3.11 disaster, which greatly damaged, if not entirely
destroyed, built environments and dislocated pre-disaster community
networks. Although researchers have increasingly emphasised the
importance of social capital to community resilience, the reconstruction
of people–place relations in post-disaster settings has remained
understudied. Based on an analysis of data collected during eight months
of ethnographic fieldwork on long-term recovery in Yamamoto, Japan,
this article explains how locals there have renegotiated social networks
and their sense of place during their temporal, spatial, and social
reorientation following the disaster. Overall, the findings reveal how
community resilience can be characterised by a co-constructive
relationship of sense of place and social capital.