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Neighborhood Tokyo, by Theodore Bestor
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In the vastness of Tokyo these are tiny social units, and by the standards that most Americans would apply, they are perhaps far too small, geographically and demographically, to be considered "neighborhoods." Still, to residents of Tokyo and particularly to the residents of any given subsection of the city, they are socially significant and geographically distinguishable divisions of the urban landscape. In neighborhoods such as these, overlapping and intertwining associations and institutions provide an elaborate and enduring framework for local social life, within which residents are linked to one another not only through their participation in local organizations, but also through webs of informal social, economic, and political ties.
This book is an ethnographic analysis of the social fabric and internal dynamics of one such neighborhood: Miyamoto-cho, a pseudonym for a residential and commercial district in Tokyo where the author carried out fieldwork from June 1979 to May 1981, and during several summers since. It is a study of the social construction and maintenance of a neighborhood in a society where such communities are said to be outmoded, even antithetical to the major trends of modernization and social change that have transformed Japan in the last hundred years. It is a study not of tradition as an aspect of historical continuity, but of traditionalism: the manipulation, invention, and recombination of cultural patterns, symbols, and motifs so as to legitimate contemporary social realities by imbuing them with a patina of venerable historicity. It is a study of often subtle and muted struggles between insiders and outsiders over those most ephemeral of the community's resources, its identity and sense of autonomy, enacted in the seemingly insubstantial idioms of cultural tradition.
- Sales Rank: #1412398 in Books
- Published on: 1990-03-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.50" h x .93" w x 5.50" l, 1.00 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 368 pages
Most helpful customer reviews
22 of 24 people found the following review helpful.
A must for anyone interested in Tokyo
By cssmith
Neighborhood Tokyo is one of only a handful of books in English that offers a realistic and insightful portrait of the lives of ordinary people in this vibrant global metropolis. It provides an intimate and well-grounded account of the daily life of a particular neighborhood located near the heart of the city. Yet, in addressing issues that apply to numerous other downtown neighborhoods, it gives us a sense of the organization and dynamics of daily life throughout much of central Tokyo.
The book is based on the dissertation research of Theodore Bestor (Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University) who spent more than two years in the 1980s in Miyamoto-cho (a pseudonym). Although his fieldwork was conducted before Japan's bubble economy burst in 1990, the main thrust of the book is still relevant to an understanding of life in Tokyo today. Bestor's work challenges the common view that Tokyo, unlike Western cities, is at its core a jumble of "urban villages" in which communities are patterned after the shitamachi (downtown) of Early Modern, pre-industrial Japan. Shitamachi and the townsman way of life, both now and then, is said to be more colorful, boisterous and down to earth, and to have stronger communal ties than newer and more bourgeois sections of the city. The continuity between the shitamachi of today and yesterday is a source of great pride for many Tokyoites.
Bestor argues that this popular view is too simplistic. He asserts that social patterns in present day shitamachi are not so much romantic remnants from a pre-industrial and semi-fedualistic age as they are the products of an ongoing urbanization which began with Japan's industrialization. Places like Miyamoto-cho were not even part of Tokyo in the Edo period, while many of the traditional areas of Edo's shitamachi, like Nihonbashi and Kyobashi, are now sparsely populated sections of the Central Business District. The so-called traditional urban life thought to have been carried over from the past in isolation from the rest of modern Japan in fact derives from the interaction between neighborhood and city government, as well as from responses to "nationwide currents of political, economic, and social change"(4). Chokai (neighborhood associations), for example, which are instrumental to the closely knit shitamachi life, were formed to deal with rapid population turnover and "the evils thought to be inherent in the new urban industrial age" (69).
Why then do so many people believe that certain neighborhoods like Miyamoto-cho resemble the shitamachi of pre-industrial Edo in their customs, values, sense of community, and social structure? Bestor answers that over the years people have manipulated ideas about the past in order to push agendas of social control and distinction. By linking the present to a venerable past, i.e., by representing their neighborhoods as the inheritors of shitamachi traditions, the old middle class of chonin (artisans and shopkeepers) can maintain a certain pride and autonomy vis-a-vis the city government and the new (and higher status) middle class of white collar salaried workers. Bestor calls this manipulation of ideas about the past "traditionalism." For me this is the most fascinating part of the book. It raises the question of what the romanticization of shitamachi life by the larger society is about. To what extent is it claimed to be part of Japan's shared past and why?
Neighborhood Tokyo is significant in the discourse on Japan not only because little had been written from an anthropological perspective about urban Japan at the time of its publication, but also because it illustrates class differences in Japanese society. It thus flies in the face of ubiquitous claims of a relatively classless Japan. It is also an excellent and early example of efforts within anthropology to bring more of a historical and political economic perspective to sociocultural analysis, as well as of efforts in research design to get beyond older notions of bounded field sites.
This book is a must for anybody interested in Tokyo's shitamachi or urban Japan in general. Though it is a scholarly text written mainly for an academic audience, thanks to Bestor's lucid and lively prose style, it is also a very readable and entertaining account filled with many colorful and humorous vignettes.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Hundreds of subjects, one neighborhood
By S. Westenburg
Neighborhood Tokyo is now one of my favorite books. I've only taken one cultural anthropology class and the study of modern anthropology has always fascinated me, yet my knowledge of it is limited and I'm turned off by books written for fellow anthropologists. An author like Bestor is then exactly what I've been looking for. That's not to say he writes below his level of intelligence or simplifies his study. Bestor uses terminology not meant for the layman, and a basic knowledge of Japan itself is almost required to really understand the book.
But it's the way that Bestor writes that really makes Neighborhood Tokyo for everyone. I can guarantee you that not one page you will find dull or irrelevant to the topic. The best way to describe it is as a non-fiction book that follows the unspoken guidelines of successful fiction. He manages to develop Miyamoto-chan's residence like main characters in a novel, and even throws in foreshadowing and plot-twists where he can.
Bestor's main purpose is to give outsiders, layman and anthropologists both, a better idea of the life of urban Tokyo's populace, and to dispose of stereotypes associated with them. Having lived in the neighborhood of his study for three years, he is able to give us a far more personal look at an extremely complex society that no other study could have. It's impossible to even touch upon a single subject that he covers, for it would inevitably give a small impression of something that is connected with every other subject in the book.
If you can't guess, I'm having trouble even describing the book properly in a general sense.
All I can really say to get my point across is that you must read this book. There isn't anyone that I would not recommend this book to, and plenty to whom I would highly recommend it. If you are interested in history, World War II, anthropology, Japan, modern society, food, small business, traffic problems, the environment, the 80's, religion, politics, anime, or have a few days of free time and nothing else to do, this book is a requirement for you.
In fact, I'm expecting a book report about it on my desk by next Tuesday.
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