Functional History in Ethnographic Japan
While comparing the ethnographies of authors Robertson and Bestor it is important to note inherent conditions of each of their approaches to urban Japanese society that inform the structure of the studies and affect the final product. The first factor is the relative size of each survey; Bestor focuses his attention on a single neighborhood in Tokyo proper while Robertson views a small city not far away in the Tokyo metropolitan prefecture. The origins of each also differ in that neighborhood Miyamoto-cho was once an agricultural hamlet engulfed by post-1923 urban expansion while the rural Ogawa-mura wasn’t consolidated with other villages and expanded into the suburban bedroom community of Kodaira until the post-war period. These aspects factor heavily into the Tokyo government’s administration of these two units as well as their demographic composition. That being said Bestor and Robertson use entirely different methodologies in their approach to, and their characterization of, ethnographic Japan.
Robertson likens her own approach to ethnography to a sculptor, conceivably an accurate metaphor for her attempt to discern and identify the dominant discourses of furusato (old village) Japan. She situates this concept as the ubiquitous buzzword of a government attempting to facilitate “cultural administration” of a society whose basic needs have been met and also as a lens, in furusato-zukuri (old village-making), for viewing the creation of the future by way of the past and the past by way of the present, essentially the commodification of history as is deemed useful. Furusato is positioned as an inherently Japanese concept that has come into widespread usage in the context of Japan attempting to assert its cultural autonomy in the face of a world rapidly becoming internationalized. More specifically she analyses the interactions of the central government and city of Kodaira in an attempt to expose administrative rhetorical strategies and the possibly misguided reshaping of popular memory to conform to a furusato ideal, even while a rift fixes between natives and newcomers. One example of this is the contrasting use of naru (to become) and tsukuru (to create) in designations of negative and positive change, respectively, in official literature. Things that have ‘become worse’ are ‘made to be better,’ eschewing accountability for motivational rhetoric. (29) While her exploration of the furusato concept is highly elaborated, it seems likely her focus on the principal actualizations of a dominant trope is limited in scope for that reason. Meanwhile, Bestor works to debunk dominant perspectives of Tokyo’s old middle class and the misrepresentation of their cultural and historical identity. He posits the notion of the isolation of urban communities as based on the false assumption that strong social ties require closed social worlds and traces “traditionalism,” in terms of manipulation of cultural patterns and symbols, as an index of interaction with rather than a departure from the larger society. (44) (262) Vying of the neighborhood and ward government for autonomy and greater control of the district displays the chokai (neighborhood association) as one of the main components of neighborhood social character as well as its official vehicle for the foray into public politics. (121)
Robertson uses a style abound in factual detail and includes many primary source documents from contemporary and historical Kodaira to communicate public interpretation of social currents. However, in their plenitude she is forced to negotiate sometimes uninformative and cumbersome studies and statistics produced by the metropolitan government, such as equating healthy neighborhood community with tsukiai, in this context the regular greeting of neighbors and watching their homes while they vacation. While her research skills as an ethnographer are immediately apparent, the lack of a strong narrative imbues an academic tone and her first-person accounts mainly provide context for additional facts, figures and clarifications. Bestor’s “thick” ethnography is rich in physical detail and often adds a human element in narrative form to his discussions of community life and social structure. The prevalence of personal testimonies, which act as private interpretations of public events, speaks to the interpersonal skills of the ethnographer and his active participation in neighborhood life.
Robertson depicts a functional history, a nonspecific but universal history that can be expropriated, modified and commodified, that is contradictory in its uses by different factions each can use to promote and substantiate their own philosophy. An anonymous historicity is mobilized in support of furusato-zukuri, in turn a reaction to the perceived cultural fatigue associated with urbanization. This “cultural administration,” the application of furusato-zukuri, appeals to nostalgia for one’s ancestral home, or even a postmodern nostalgia, for the experience of nostalgia itself, experienced by urbanites. (16) Not solely an urban phenomenon, however, furusato is also practiced by rural villages facing depopulation in order to attract “honorary villagers,” who are essentially long-term tourists. This includes the invention or retrieval of traditional village activities that ply a real or imagined nostalgia perhaps at the expense of objective authenticity but retained by real villagers. (31) In some cases historical accuracy is displaced by contemporary ramifications of new “old village-making”, as in the example of the geographic history of Kodaira as postulated in the citizen’s charter. Although inhabited for thousands of years prior, the land reclamation project that yielded Ogawa-mura and eventually Kodaira marks the beginning of this landscape’s nominal history. (74) However, while formulated to rectify the presumed culture-disintegrating effects of urban living, furusato is also an agent of antinomy; competing appropriations divide natives and newcomers in Kodaira. In reaction to increasing suburbanization and diminished demographic presence, Kodaira natives, descendants of early 18th century inhabitants, have reconstructed their identity as an exclusive institution under the banner of furusato. From self-mythologizing to maintaining exclusive parish membership rights to preserving local political power they have successfully engendered the stratification of native and newcomer. Finding themselves compelled by necessity to assimilate to newcomer’s professional way of life, successful stratification reversed the model insomuch that newcomers were expected to appropriate the “traditional” conduct embodied by the native population in order to assimilate. (189) The constitution of the citizen’s festival is another representation of the incongruity of ideas about furusato. Alternately consisting of an adult palanquin shrine not sanctified by local Shinto priest which precludes religious legitimization, a child’s palanquin symbolizing the Kodairakko, or newcomers perpetually denied status, women folk dancers acting as mediators in relegated gender roles, and a large non-civilian component that attempts to marry these disparate elements as furusato Kodaira, the festival serves as a community event while at the same time exaggerating cultural discord.
On the other hand Bestor treats functional history as an ahistorical but contemporarily authentic use of traditionalism that is used to swathe modern convention in “venerable antiquity.” However he also argues that this referencing of traditional symbols and ideals does not from any historical continuity carried over from feudal times but was precipitated in the 1920s by apprehension regarding widespread urbanization and the first emergent chokai. (69) This traditionalism is reproduced in the modern context of the old middle class responding to the stratification of status and effectively demonstrating their visibility and influence on the local community scale. This drama plays out in the chokai of urban neighborhoods that, for one, resist amalgamation by the administration as a, “means of preserving the distinct traditions” of the neighborhood and maintaining autonomy from the ward branch office. (119) The chokai also represent the structural basis of local social hierarchies, removed from the world of white-collar predominance by way of their own vertical integration and the literal absence of sarariiman in urban neighborhoods during the workday. Participation in local events also behooves those with a vested interest in neighborhood affairs and none more so than the annual matsuri (festival). The matsuri encapsulates the community’s manifest priorities in a brilliant, if discrete display. The festival is carefully organized weeks ahead of time by the festival committee, appointments to which reinforce the community’s social stratification yet are outshined by a spirit of egalitarianism and group harmony. (235) Similar to the citizen’s festival in Kodaira, the main occasion of the matsuri is the procession of the tutelary deity carried in a palanquin through the neighborhood, symbolically directed along the neighborhood’s borders as an assertion of local cohesion and autonomy. (241) These traditional ideals of community life are reified by the festival and other community events in that their continued practice garners the authenticity of tradition as well as prestige for the whole community.
Robertson’s methodically detailed portrait of furusato as both a catalyst and a hindrance to social betterment suggests that after over a decade of implementation and virtual omnipresence in mass media, “cultural administration,” at least at the time of publication, is still in a prototypical phase that lacks real transformative power. This is reinforced by the trope’s virtual absence in Bestor’s ethnography, citing the concepts komyunitei and machi-zukuri as misconceived urban community models that presume the infeasibility of cohesive urbanization independent of government community-building policies. Bestor asserts the positive influence of chokai and informal institutions in sustaining community life as well as the constancy of neighborhood partisans.
Bibliography:
Bestor, Theodore C. Neighborhood Tokyo. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989.
Robertson, Jennifer. Native and Newcomer: Making and Remaking a Japanese City. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
