Cyberspatial qualities of contemporary Tokyo

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1995.Includes bibliographical references (p. 150-152).The cityscape of contemporary Tokyo is undergoing a dramatic transformation caused by a proliferation of technology, such as the rapid mass transit network and the advanced telecommunication system. On the one hand conventional urban design criteria such as physical proximity and spatiotemporal consistency are challenged or even rendered obsolete; on the other hand many new characteristics of the city are being established, and some of them have become prominent criteria in comprehending today's Tokyo. In order to apprehend this process of transformation and its impact on the city's form, and eventually to respond to the new situation, it is necessary to identify those unconventional characteristics brought to Tokyo by the proliferation of technology. In this thesis those peculiarities of contemporary Tokyo are pinpointed through a process of analogy with cyberspace, which bears tremendous resemblances to Tokyo. Contemporary Tokyo is found to contain two cities: the visible chaotic city and the invisible ordered city. In the visible city, the intonation of criteria used to form the mental image of a city is transformed; time is given importance over space; schizophrenia is a persistent theme; the boundary between human and machine is blurred; hierarchies and distinctions among objects are eliminated through codification. In the invisible city, the pattern of city's evolution is prescribed as piecemeal decentralized spontaneous growth; each node contains all the information of the whole system - the part equals the whole; connectivity becomes the prominent feature of a place - it promotes concentration and deconcentration simultaneously, and replaces Euclidean geometry with topology; layers of matrices cast ubiquitous control and circumscription over the whole city. The two cities rely on one another yet never compromise with each other; together they lay down the affordances and constraints of the city, and give it a new form. Both the visible city and the invisible city are the offspring of the Japanese culture of congestion, of which a full embrace or a total rejection will only cause lament.by Tong Chen.M.S

The Crisis of Language in Contemporary Japan: Reading, Writing, and New Technology

My dissertation is an ethnographically inspired theoretical exploration of the crises of reading and writing in contemporary Japan. Each of the five chapters examines concrete instances of reading and writing practices that have been problematized in recent decades. By calling attention to underlying moral assumptions, established sociocultural protocols, and socio-technological conditions of the everyday, I theorize the concept of embodied reading and writing thresholds. The scope of analysis is partly informed by popular discourse decrying a perceived decline in reading and writing proficiency among Japanese youth. This alleged failing literacy figures as a national crisis under the assumption that the futurity of children's national language proficiency metonymically correlates with the future well being of its national cultural body. In light of heightened interests in the past, present, and future of books, and a series of recent state interventions on the prospect of "national" text culture, it is my argument that ongoing tensions surrounding the changing media landscape and symbolic relations to the world do not merely reflect changes in styles of language, structures of spatiotemporal awareness, or forms of knowledge production. Rather, they indicate profound transformations and apprehensions among the lives mediated and embodied by the very system of signification that has come under scrutiny in the post-Lost Decade Japan (03/1991-01/2002). My dissertation offers an unique point of critical intervention into 1) various forms of tension arising from the overlapping media technologies and polarized population, 2) formations of reading and writing body (embodiment) at an intersection of heterogeneous elements and everyday disciplining, 3) culturally specific conditions and articulations of the effects of "universal" technologies, 4) prospects of "proper" national reading and writing culture, and 5) questions of cultural transformation and transmission. I hope that the diverse set of events explored in respective chapters provide, as a whole, a broader perspective of the institutional and technological background as well as an intimate understanding of culturally specific circumstances in Japan. Insofar as this is an attempt to conduct a nuanced inquiry into the culturally specific configurations and articulations of a global phenomenon, each ethnographic moment is carefully contextualized to reflect Japan specific conditions while avoiding the pitfall of culturalist assumptions. Understanding how an existing system of representation, technological imperatives and sociohistorical predicaments have coalesced to form a unique constellation is the first step in identifying how the practice of reading and writing becomes a site of heated national debate in Japan. Against theories that problematize the de-corporealizing effects of digital technology within reading and writing, I emphasize the material specificity of contemporary reading and writing practices

Taking Purikura: Vernacular Photography and Contested Female Visibility in Japan

This thesis is an exploration of purikura, a type of Japanese photo booth that has been prevalent since the 1990s - these machines, which utilize a broad variety of technologies to allow users to draw on, manipulate or beautify their appearance, serve as a popular form of vernacular photography among young women in Japan. It has been theorized that purikura machines serve as a means of public display of relationship networks, as a form of social capital, and as a tool for the crafting of new friendships. Through the use of these machines as a participant observer, as well as an engagement with the social media, magazines, films, music and manga (comics) favored by interlocutors, this thesis expands on the mediascape purikura persists within to better contextualize this practice. Through participant observation, this thesis expands on the kata, or practiced coordination required in purikura production, demanding an attention to poses, symmetry and group camaraderie. These photographs, which are often utilized for the commemoration of fashion and leisure activities, also serve as a form of conspicuous consumption - this is further enhanced through the beauty practices that these machines work in tandem with, creating an exaggerated gender performance of emphatic femininity in retaliation against larger social expectations of marriage and motherhood for young women in Japan. As a form of digitally enhanced photography that is circulated broadly across social media, this thesis also explores the potential for the proliferation of purikura photographs to be understood as a technologically-mediated cyborg selfhood with a global audience. Through purikura, many young women in Japan are using self-directed photography to describe meaningful life events, peer relationships, and emotions - purikura users challenge normative classification, choosing instead to align themselves within their own subcultures in ways that are unreadable to those who do not participate, where beauty practices have been utilized for in-group classification, further questioning the boundaries of normative Japanese femininity

The Politics of Difference and Authenticity in the Practice of Okinawan Dance and Music in Osaka, Japan.

This dissertation examines the ways in which Okinawan music and dance, especially eisa and minyo, are practiced and interpreted by diasporic Okinawans and Japanese enthusiasts in Osaka, Japan. By following changes in Okinawan dance and music practice in Osaka, I explore how the apparent recognition and celebration of Okinawan difference, in comparison to the negation of ethnic and cultural diversity, can either enhance equity between groups or reinforce the existing cultural hierarchy. Also, I examine how different actors attempt to establish or recover authenticity in their practice, their identity, and/or their personhood through their practice and interpretations, thereby illustrating that authenticity is constructed through practice by the collective participation, interaction, contestation, and reflection of actors. Cultural activism and cultural appropriation are the two most prominent aspects of Okinawan music and dance practice in Osaka. Cultural activism started occurring in the mid-1970s by diasporic Okinawans as a means to contest the hegemonic ideology of ethnic, cultural and social homogeneity of Japan, assert Okinawan difference, and build communality through collective participation in music and dance. Cultural appropriation by Japanese enthusiasts, on the other hand, has occurred on a large scale since the 1990s, when Okinawan music and dance became popular nationwide in media and popular culture. While such Japanese fascination with Okinawan music and dance has had positive effects on the reception of Okinawan difference and provides many diasporic Okinawans with opportunities to boost their self-esteem and increase their means of livelihood, it also distracts mainstream Japanese from realizing the political and social marginalization of Okinawa in the past and present, undermines Okinawan cultural activism, and results in the Japanization of Okinawan music and dance. This continuing gap between Okinawans and Japanese illuminates the fact that the apparent recognition and celebration of Okinawan difference does not necessarily lead to overcoming the continuing socio-cultural asymmetry, but often disguises it. However, the case of the appropriation of Okinawan dance by Japanese gay males in LGBTQ activism illustrates that the effects of cultural practice on politics of difference are ambivalent, and not always predictable.PHDAnthropologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/108899/1/sumic_1.pd

Modelling informal urban growth under rapid urbanisation

Dar es Salaam in Tanzania is one of the fastest growing urban agglomerations in Africa and projected to become a megacity (i.e., a city with more than 5 mio. inhabitants) by 2025. Rapid urban growth under poverty has outstripped the capacities of planning authorities to cope with the enormous pace of urban expansion. As a consequence informal settlements absorb almost all urban settlers leading to rapid urban sprawl into the unplanned periphery. But still only little is known about the drivers and mechanisms of ongoing urbanisation processes and the means of intervention. The need for well balanced and informed decisions becomes evident and calls inter alia for support of urban planning by geo-information technology and so-called decision support systems. This thesis approaches these needs by designing a land-use simulation model for the city of Dar es Salaam. Particularly in developing countries urban modelling inevitably comprises the challenge of setting up an appropriate database. Public authorities in Dar es Salaam lack precise and up-to-date information and were unable to contribute to the database needed for the modelling work particularly since multi-temporal information was required. Basic datasets which have been provided by another research institution were extended and updated to serve as the database required by the analysis and modelling work. The model presented is based on standard GIS software and designed along the principles of Cellular Automata (CA) which are particularly suitable to capture neighbourhood dynamics and likewise do not demand for a highly sophisticated database. Population projections by the UN Population Division have been used to determine future demand for informal residential land. The model simulates its allocation based on variables which represent major drivers of informal urban growth: natural conditions, accessibility and local-scale dynamics, i.e., so-called neighbourhood effects. These drivers have been proven to be adequate to explain and project urban growth during the process of model calibration and validation based on regression analyses. The model has been employed to project land-use patterns until 2022 as a baseline scenario. In accordance with recent local urban planning and development discourse the impact of transport infrastructure projects on the distribution of future urban growth has been simulated in four scenario settings. The results have been analysed with reference to the baseline scenario to compare the characteristics of likely urban futures. The application of the model demonstrates the considerable potential of urban growth modelling for the situation in Dar es Salaam and its transferability to cities facing similar conditions. It provides a valuable laboratory to test the drivers and mechanisms of urban growth and the associated means of intervention. During field work interim results have proven that the model is able to establish and maintain a discourse among planners and other stakeholders thus mitigating one of the major weaknesses of urban development planning - the lack of cooperation and coordination. This is an essential first step for strategic intervention into informal urban development processes given the limited resources at hand and to support planning authorities in Dar es Salaam to cope with future urban development in a pro-active manner