Heide Imai was presenting together with Florian Purkarthoefer (University Vienna) the paper Gentrification, Revitalization or what: Changing Scapes, Spaces and Places in Japan at the Cultural Typhoon Conference 2019, taking at Keio University from 1st-2nd June, as a first result of an ongoing research project called Gentrifying Japan.
The presentation attracted a wider audience and people from the field of interdisciplinary Asian and cultural studies including visual anthropology, critical social and community studies. The main questions which were raised during the presentation were 1) who is not included/not profiting and in what way people resist, protest or find other ways to make their voices against the ongoing processes heard, 2) what role do artists play in the process, as these often do not want to be part of differen tcreative policies, yet also need spaces and means to make a living, and 3) how our paper is contributing to the wider, global debate which we critized for being too general to be cover the diversity and complexity of different cases, especially of the existing variety of urban spheres in East Asia. With this feedback in mind, we will finalize our data set and prepare our paper for publication.
For more information and updates, please refer to https://www.researchgate.net/project/Gentrifying-Japan