Japan Fieldwork Workshop's
next meeting will be June 1st. See below for details.

Jieun Kim, PhD Candidate
Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan

INSIGHTS FROM A 'SEWER' IN THE ERA OF A 'LOW-STREAM
SOCIETY':
KOTOBUKI, A HETEROTOPIA

June 1st, 2011, 6pm
Sophia University, Yotsuya Campus
Bldg. 10, room 301
http://www.fla.sophia.ac.jp/about/location

Abstract:
Kotobuki, also used to be known as the nation's third largest *yoseba*(labor exchange market, or a day laborer's district), is a three hundred square meters' neighborhood, in which more than 80% of the residents are living on social welfare. Given the national fervor for 'self-reliance' and 'self-responsibility' since the collapse of the bubble economy in Japan, it comes to a surprise that such a place lacking any economic productivity should exist right at the heart of Japan's second largest city, Yokohama. It is particularly so since Yokohama is a city popularly known for its managerial approach to urban planning epitomized in its "Creative City"
initiative and city branding, seeking profits in every possible appropriation of its built environment.

In an attempt to seek for collective wisdom in directing this ongoing research, I would like to share my understanding of Kotobuki as a place of counter-governmentality. With a brief introduction to the local history of Kotobuki, I will contend that Kotobuki, though its creation in 1950s was a purely governmental invention, has been sustained through different groups of subjects- from the welfare recipients, the homeless, volunteer workers, community organizers, labor unionists, hostel managers, and to architects-, who sought to fulfill their desire and needs that are frustrated and excluded elsewhere.

For my analysis, I will draw on the following
materials:
1) discourses in negotiating for local resources (for governmental subsidy, fund-raising and collecting volunteers),
2) spatial practices in appropriating the distinctive grid-like spatial structure of identical
flophouses(*doya*)
3) the performative aspect of living without dedicating oneself to 'productive labor' (volunteers, welfare recipients, the homeless) I will argue that while the spectrum of experience in these three dimensions is wide, depending on how one gets involved in Kotobuki, people in Kotobuki are commonly called to redefine and question the given premises of civic ethics, the division between the public and the private, the value of labor and life in a neoliberal economy. Finally, I'd also like to take some time discussing the way national emergency is reflected in this place of permanent emergency, the local response to increasing homeless and to the recruitment for the Daiichi Fukushima nuclear plant, among others.

Jieun Kim has been conducting her dissertational fieldwork in Kotobukicho, Yokohama City since Octobor 2010.

--
David H. Slater, Ph.D.
Faculty of Liberal Arts
Sophia University, Tokyo