Category: publication

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New Publication JUP The Liminality of Subcultural Spaces

Together with Lisa Woite we worked the last two years on an exciting research project dealign with the liminality of subcultural spaces in Tokyo and the changing urban situation of the city they are situated in. This is one of the first outcomes of this research project about liminal spaces in Japan and this time we are very happy to be a part of the special issue “Urban Borderlands: Difference, Inequality, and Spatio-Temporal In-Betweenness in Cities”, edited byDeljana Iossifova (University of Manchester) and David Kostenwein (ETH Zurich). Many thanks for all the critic, advice and support coming from peer-reviewers, colleagues and friends.

The paper is open access and available for download here:

The Liminality of Subcultural Spaces: Tokyo’s Gaming Arcades as Boundary Between Social Isolation and Integration

  • Heide ImaiFaculty of Intercultural Communication, Senshu University, Japan
  • Lisa WoiteDepartment of Imaging Arts and Sciences, Musashino Art University, Japan

https://www.cogitatiopress.com/urbanplanning/article/view/6969

The full issue is available here:

https://www.cogitatiopress.com/urbanplanning/issue/view/312

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First Paper 2022, Creative Revitalization in Rural Japan: Lessons from Ishinomaki (Ji and Imai, 2022)

Special Issue: The present issue of Asian Studies is devoted to the investigation of the causes, effects, and ethical and ideological implications of the COVID-19 pandemic in Asia, particularly in East and South-East Asia. COVID-19 has had a dramatic impact on global societies. There have been enormous changes in the economy, lifestyles, education, culture, and many other aspects of social life (Caron 2021, 1). The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed societies, cultures, organizations, infrastructures, and many social services into a completely new reality. In this respect, the COVID-19 pandemic is without doubt a crisis of global proportions. Therefore, the whole of humanity should try to find a strategic solution to it, and to this end, the importance of intercultural dialog is manifested in a particularly clear and unambiguous way.

Paper Abstract: Different disasters throughout history have prompted Japan to develop diverse approach-es to recovery, revitalization, and local resilience. The current global COVID-19 pandemic is no exception. In this paper, we argue the need to study the impacts of COVID-19 on outside major cities such as Tokyo as such areas were already experiencing socioeconomic decline. Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture is a city that has also been undergoing extensive post-disaster reconstruction after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE), nota-bly through various bottom-up approaches, often initiated by volunteers and migrants bringing new, creative ideas to community revitalization. These efforts continue to shape the social life of its residents during COVID-19, making Ishinomaki an important case study in both disaster reconstruction and rural revitalization. This paper examines exam-ples in which creativity played a key role in revitalization, recovery, and community re-silience in Ishinomaki over the last decade to shed light on current creative revitalization initiatives at the grassroots level, initiated and carried out by citizens. Drawing on an eth-nographic approach conducted remotely in the form of semi-structured interviews, the paper presents the personal narratives of a diverse range of residents and social networks committed to rebuilding the soft infrastructure that is often overlooked compared to hard infrastructure. The paper proposes suggestions for the future based on lessons learned from the past decade, and hopes to illuminate how Japan’s rural areas are adapting to a new normal in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

More here: https://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/as/article/view/9991/10050?fbclid=IwAR0ySGsaZQXZ-0KjkNphRyTZTAU-LkUmkuBwHLYfhyUoVfusq1T1e8nS2BM

Full Issue: https://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/as/issue/view/754

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A+U Special Issue 2021

A special issue of A+U will be published on 8 November 2021, to which I provided a short article entitled “Tokyo Above and Below – The Neglected and Poor of the City, in Radovic, D. Tokyo Diversities, A+U, Architecture and Urbanism Magazine, Tokyo: Shinkenchiku-Sha Co.” discussing problems as marginalisation, poverty and homelessness in contemporary Tokyo.

More can be found here:

https://japan-architect.co.jp/information/

https://www.core.place/post/a-u-special-issue-edited-by-darko

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New Reviews

Cover

Reviews about “Asian Alleyways” (with Marie Gibert-Flutre)

“The rich ethnographic data provide insights into how to address the central question posed in the book, which asks what the future roles and functions of the old alleyways are in the modern city. Each chapter elucidates the potential of alleyways by examining their transformations and functions, explaining the conflicts and initiatives, and underlining concerns and uncertainties. Together, they develop new perspectives on the laneways through the concepts of marginalization and reintegration. […] Asian Alleyways opens up questions that will interest architects, urban planners and designers, as well as policymakers interested in the spatial qualities and dynamics of these alleyways.”
– Ha Minh Hai Thai, School of Architecture and Urban Design, RMIT University, Melbourne, Journal of Urban Design, 2021

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13574809.2021.1880267?journalCode=cjud20

“The volume edited by Marie Gibert-Flutre and Heide Imai approaches the ever-changing, multi-faceted Asian alleyways as spaces of everyday practice through dense de-scriptions of the quotidian and interviews with urban planners, businesspeople, and the residents of these “liminal places” ( Jones 2007), thus bringing to light these often neglected—in real life as well as in academia—in-between spaces.The volume presents a fascinating kaleidoscope of rich ethnographic detail gathered from metropoles across Asia, such as Ho Chi Minh City, Beijing, To-kyo, Seoul, Bangkok, Shanghai, Taipei, and Hong Kong. It furthers discussions on how spaces create collectives, how collectives create space, and how social change, local politics, and recent modes of globalization impact lived realities in Asian cities.” Daniel BULTMANN, Humboldt-Universität Berlin,

https://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/as/article/view/9891/9409?fbclid=IwAR3FMTM1eOeAWaOAlMpu4EhhLsWxYj3cnnv03-Jos8-JAzB_CzUFNiM3bLY

Review about “Creativity in Tokyo” (with Matjaz Ursic)

https://urbaniizziv.uirs.si/Portals/urbaniizziv/Clanki/2021/urbani-izziv-en-2021-32-01-06.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3SLR0nL_J0k5qGtHI6_DebPR-VyBTRN-tIm10dF7FBiLWK8Volv3Wmfaw

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Outlook 2021

Happy New Year 2021 and being back in the office, the year 2021 looks like a fresh start as several new ideas turned into new research projects and publications, and before shortly talking about some of them, lets review what 2020 brought:

  • starting a new job right during a global pandemic, incl. online teaching and learning
  • two new books published, one edited book and one written with a co-author, many thanks to all
  • two book chapters published
  • two journal papers published
  • four journal papers reviewed and two book reviews written for journals
  • research funding secured for 2021 and 2022
  • presentations given at three conferences online, plus several invited talks, lectures and a book talk
  • several webinars, seminars and workshops attended online, covering the areas of Asian, Japanese, Cultural and Urban Studies,

so all in all 2020 was a good year and 2021 may offer new chances including:

  1. Cross-cultural research project based in Japan and Australia, discussing the relationship between public space, global pandemics and how to secure that vulnerable groups are included in programs addressing and securing the possibility of diverse uses
  2. New monograph focusing on the case of Yokohama, describing how the city has used different approaches to revitalize urban areas, resulting in new everyday realities for in- and outsiders, https://www.researchgate.net/project/Everyday-Yokohama
  3. Papers addressing the lesson we can learn from the creative industries in shrinking areas in Japan, discussing their resilience level to overcome future global crisis
  4. Papers discussing the role of creative revitalization, gentrification and local governance in different scales, places and spaces in Japan and Asia, https://www.researchgate.net/project/Creativity-and-Urban-Revitalization
  5. Presentations planned for conferences in Singapore, Kyoto and Chiba, Japan, https://www.iias.asia/events/icas-12

Lets see how 2021 will turn out but first of all I wish you all the best and stay safe!

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Social Capital, Innovation, and Local Resilience: Tokyo Neighbourhood in Times of Crisis

small creative actors

This paper is based on research that centres on the city of Tokyo, a mature city that is experiencing various transformations, in order to show how social capital and innovation can help build up resilient communities. It presents two major topics: 1) the potential of localities and their social capital and social innovation to actively react to change, and 2) the role of localities for inclusive urban governance. By focusing on five small neighbourhoods in the south of Taito-ward in central-east Tokyo, the paper addresses the following questions: a) what kinds of social networks and interaction exist at the local level, b) how are residents contributing to neighbourhood revitalization and community identity, and c) what are specific examples of social innovative practices, emerging in periods of crisis, in the case-study area as a direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic? By adopting a mixed methods approach drawing especially on in-depth interviews conducted with a range of independent business owners, the study reveals the dynamics between long-term residents and newcomers as they negotiate shared identities that continue to shape the present and future of some of Tokyo’s oldest neighbourhoods. The research findings highlight the need for good urban governance to draw on an improved understanding of the potential of localities, place-based social capital building, and new social practices that are emerging in local third sectors, such as volunteer-run industry-based organizations, which are vital in maintaining informal networks as an alternative to more traditional neighbourhood groups to bond, bridge, and link diverse community members, Authors: Heide IMAI, Yao JI

appearing 01.2021 Asian Studies Journal, Special Issues Local Transformations in Urban Asia,

https://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/as/announcement/view/87

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Global Landscape of Subculture

サブカルチャー的空間というグローバル・ランドスケー
プ：高円寺の事例より
Global Landscape of Subculture Spaces: The Case of Kōenji, Tokyo

This paper presents the neighbourhood Koenji, Tokyo to show how urban neighbourhoods in Japan are increasingly transformed by diverse and competing interests. Gentrified through the emergence of new forms of housing, public spaces and re-appropriated by different fields, the local community is re-interpreted by individuals, subcultures and new social movements to fit hybrid and multiple concepts of living and lifestyles. Drawing on ethnographic data, this paper investigates the kind of functions the community fulfilled in the past, the qualities of urban life that have been lost, changed or re-integrated. Providing multiple narratives of change, the paper’s main purpose is to critically reflect on the gentrification of the neighbourhood, arguing that similar cases exist in cities worldwide, including for example Berlin and Amsterdam, which should be studied and compared with each other to understand how different urban transformation processes affect the local community and everyday urban life at the micro-level

appearing 01/2021 in Japanese in 造園学会誌84-4号特集号執筆

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Asian Alleyways (2) Publications in 2020

Alleyways are an urban form historically shared by most cities in Asia, yet understudied. The book critically explores “Global Asia” and the metropolization process, specifically from its alleyways, which are understood as ordinary neighbourhood landscape providing the setting for everyday urban life and place-based identities being shaped by varied everyday practices, collective experiences and forces. This turns the traditional approach of “global cities” upside-down and contributes to a renewed conception of metropolization as a highly situated process, where forces at play locally, in each alleyway neighbourhood, are both intertwined and labile. Beyond the mainstream, standardising vision of the metropolization process, the book offers a nuanced overview of urban production in Asia at a time of great changes. As such, the book will be welcomed by an array of scholars, students, and all those interested in the modern transformation of Asian cities and their urban cultures, including new approaches to social life, urban change and urban governance.

Many thanks to Marie Gibert-Flutre for being such a great co-editor and co-author, for bringing together such a great list of scholars covering such as Bangkok, Beijing, Hongkong, HCMC, Seoul, Shanghai, Taipei and Tokyo. We hope the book will make a great addition to the ongoing discussion about changes going in Asian cities and Asian Alleyways. Many thanks to all contributors, editors, endorsers and to everyone who helped to make the book come true…

More on: https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789463729604/asian-alleyways

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Creativity in Tokyo (1) Publications in 2020

This book focuses on overlooked contextual factors that constitute the urban creative climate or innovative urban milieu in contemporary cities. Filled with reflections based on interviews with a diverse range of creative actors in various local neighborhoods in Tokyo, it offers a rare glimpse into the complex set of elements that provide long-term, physical, and sociocultural support to urban creativity. Ursic and Imai highlight the interplay between physical and soft (social) factors in the process of place-making and explore how a city’s creativity is influenced by financial support and accessible infrastructure, as well as the sets of informal networks, services, and tacit, locally embedded knowledge that provide the basic layers of stimuli needed for creativity to fully develop. The authors show how the future development of creativity and the overall development of a city depend not only on the (top-down) planning strategies of formal authorities, but also on the appropriate (bottom-up) inclusion of heterogeneous elements that are provided and embedded within the small, hidden context of city spaces.

Many thanks to Matjaz Ursic for being such a fantastic co-author, for taking the journey to write a book together and for never giving up, after 5 years, endless emails and video calls, the book is almost hitting the book shelves and we hope it will be great addition to the ongoing discussion about the importance of public space. Many thanks to all our endorsers, editors and everybody involved, we could not have succeeded without you…

More on: ww.palgrave.com/gp/book/9789811566868#aboutBook

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What will 2020 bring

In times of uncertainty, I think it is time to update you on some happy news and things happening in 2020:


Update 1:As of April 1st 2020 I will start a new tenured position as Associate Professor at Senshu Universities’ new Faculty of Intercultural Communication and I am more than looking forward to teach young, upcoming students who want to explore the world and widen their horizons, making our globe hopefully a better place. We need new innovative ideas, in Japan especially.


Update 2:We are happy to announce that our edited book “Asian Alleyways: An Urban Vernacular in Times of Globalization” (Amsterdam University Press, with Marie Gibert-Flutre) will be in print soon, but under the current circumstances we have to wait for the confirmation fo the official release date.


Update 3:We are happy to announce that our co-authored book “Creativity in Tokyo – Revitalizing a Matured City” (Palgrave Macmillan, with Matjaz Ursic), will be published soon and we will announce the publication date as soon as we know more. We think that especially this book will help Tokyo and Japan to discover new ways to approach current challenges, regardless of what will happen to Tokyo 2021 #beyond2020

Looking forward to see what else 2020 (apart from some journal papers) will bring, not just work-wise. If you want to collaborate in any way, please get in touch. Many thanks to you all, stay safe and strong.

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Coming soon – Book on Asian Alleyways

IIAS

The book “Asian Alleyways – An Urban Vernacular in Times of Globalisation”, authored by Marie Gibert-Flutre and Heide Imai, was recently introduced at the International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS), taking place fron 16-19 July 2019 in Leiden, as part of a session entitled “Taking stock of the IIAS Book Series published by Amsterdam University Press”. We will keep you updated when the book is available in stores and online. Many thanks to Marie Gibert-Flutre and Paul Rabé (head of the AUP series on Asian Cities) for the chance to promote the book.

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Paperback Tokyo Roji (2018)

Paperback Tokyo Roji (2018)

With great pleasure I can announce that Routledge is satisfied with the sales numbers for 2018 and decided to bring out the paperback much earlier, already one year after the hardcover (normal are 18-24months). Imai, Heide (2018) Tokyo Roji: The Diversity and Versatility of Alleys in a City in Transition https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781317363651

Paperback: 9780367140991 Hardback: 9781138949102

ABOUT THIS BOOK The Japanese urban alleyway, which was once part of people’s personal spatial sphere and everyday life has been transformed by diverse and competing interests. Marginalised through the emergence of new forms of housing and public spaces, re-appropriated by different fields, and re-invented by the contemporary urban design discourse, the social meaning attached to the roji is being re-interpreted by individuals, subcultures and new social movements. The book will introduce and discuss examples of urban practices which take place within the dynamic urban landscape of contemporary Tokyo to portray the life cycle of an urban form being rediscovered, commodified and lost as physical space.

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Sense of Place -Tokyo, Books on Asia featured Tokyo Roji

Books on Asia, run by Amy Chavez, has included Tokyo Roji in their recent issue which introduced books which are essential reading to understand the great capital city of Tokyo. From historical reads and memoirs by English language authors Edward Seidensticker, John Nathan and Ian
Buruma, the issue also included books of contemporary authors as Banana Yoshimoto, Hiromi Kawakami and Haruki Murakami.

For more information:
https://booksonasia.net/issues/four/