Ben Ari Japanese Discourses of Place Making

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Contested Identities and Models of Action in Japanese Discourses of Place-MakingAuthor(s): Eyal Ben-AriSource: Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 68, No. 4 (Oct., 1995), pp. 203-218Published by: The George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic ResearchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3317283 .

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CONTESTEDIDENTITIESAND MODELSOF ACTIONINJAPANESEDISCOURSESOF PLACE-MAKINGEYAL BEN-ARI

The Hebrew University of JerusalemThis article examines discourses related to newly built neighborhoods in contemporaryJapan. The focus on recently constructed housing estates is a corrective to many recentstudies which have been overwhelmingly examinations of "old"or "traditional"neighbor-hoods. On one level, such discourse is related to the reputational content of a locality, thatis to the series of typifications and images that capture the character and "spirit" of aplace. On another level, people often use the residential community as a mediumfor dis-cussing orfor evoking wider issues. Through addressing specific places and their attendantqualities, people constantly promote or denigrate certain visions of what Japan was, is, orshould be. This study suggests that a fruitful way to explore the complexity of these dis-courses is to uncover the 'folk" models of locality which are held by different localgroups. People use these models to describe, analyze, and evaluate what goes on in theircommunities and to prescribe ways to change them. [urban imagery, urban anthropologydiscourse, Japan, communities]

IntroductionTowards the end of my first fieldwork in Japan Iinterviewed an 80-year old villager about the his-tory of the area in which I was working. Towardsthe end of our conversation he asked where I lived.I answered that I lived in, and was studying,Hieidaira, the new suburban housing estate neigh-boring his village. He thought for a while and thendeclared:

Hieidairasactually littleTokyo.t's ikeTokyonthatyou havepeoplefrom all over the country.They'reall sooccupiedwith their obsor businesses hat there is almostnobodywillingo investhistime ntheneighborhoods-sociation.Well, what do you want?They'reall firstgen-eration in the estate; There's no feeling of furusato[hometownr homeplace],nd little contactbetweenpeople.At that time I sensed that calling a residentialarea, located hundreds of kilometers away from thecapital, "Little Tokyo," evoked a rich variety ofconnotations and associations, but like many in-sights garnered during fieldwork I did not pursuethe matter. It was only years later, when I began tothink about the manner by which people talkabout-that is, describe, analyze, and evalu-ate-their residential community, that I began todiscern the metaphor's meaning.At first I thought that the image simply exem-plified the "reputationalcontent" (Suttles 1984) ofthe housing estate: the series of typifications andimages that capture the character and "spirit"of a

place. But then I realized that the strength of the"Tokyo" metaphor used by the elderly villager layin the "missions" (Fernandez 1986: ch. 2) itseemed to be carrying out. First, it illuminatedmany of the qualities commonly associated with"modern" Japanese communities: urban imperson-ality and heterogeneity, self-interest bordering onselfishness, and a lack of communal commitmentand involvement. Second, this image underscoredan attitude towards such localities. The villager'sdeclaration seemed to have an appeal as much forits critique of contemporaryJapanese society as forits expressing a quest for the warmth and intimacyof the "traditional" community. And third, themetaphor predicated a "folk" model (Quinn andHolland 1987; Keesing 1987) of community dy-namics: that is, as set of assumptionsand interpre-tive schemes that lie at base of mundane or com-mon sense knowledge about communities. Thesemodels are of great importance because they arethe basic points of reference for "what we are" and"what we are trying to do" through which people'sreality is constructed. Here the man I interviewedseemed to be assuming-much like many older so-ciological theories of community-that a particularlocality could be taken as a microcosmof wider so-cial processes. More specifically, this man proposedthat the case of Hieidaira exemplified a causalchain linking the effects of industrialization and ur-banization to involvementin, and a sense of belong-ing to, a community.

But how is this image--or, more correctly, the203


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204 ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLYproperties, viewpoints, and causal chains it predi-cates-related to wider discussions about present-day residential localities and their place in contem-porary Japanese society? The last decade has seenthe publication of a number of excellent studiesdealing with this question. These analyses center onthe ways in which "old" places-whether real orimagined-are discussed as part of a nostalgicsearch for identity in the postwar era. Martinez(1990), for instance, shows how people have begunto look for the good in Japan, and to spend theirholidays in places that represent the real but lostJapan. Bestor (1989) illuminates how the old urbanlabel of shitamachi is now being reapplied to makesense of, and legitimate, contemporarycommunitylife and lifestyles in Tokyo. Finally, Robertson's(1992) work, which focuses on a newly urbanizedsuburb of Japan's capital, emphasizes the (prob-lematical) traditionalizing practices of "place-mak-ing" in today's Japan (Noguchi 1993).Such studies have done much to further ourunderstandingof what is entailed by "talk" about alocality. These studies show how "traditional"com-munities-whether real or imagined-are repre-sented in contemporarypublic culture as idealizedversions of the "good" Japan, and how the pur-ported qualities of such places are part of the nos-talgic quest for identity in postwar period. Further-more, they show how, through addressing specificplaces and their attendant qualities, people con-stantly promote or denigrate another level of im-agery: certain visions of what Japan was, is, orshould be like. In this article, however, my aim isnot to add yet another explication of the conceptsof "tradition," "old," "urban," or "rural" as theyare used in contemporaryJapan. Rather, using thecase of the neighborhoodthat I studied, I will ex-amine a set of wider theoretical issues involved incontemporarydiscourse about local communities.Recent studies in anthropology and relateddisciplines have underscored the con-tested-essentially labile and political-nature ofcommunity identity (Cohen 1986; McDonogh1991; Bendix 1992). According these approaches,local identity is no longer conceptualized as a givenbut rather as an assortment of typifications andimages that are constantly negotiated. But main-taining that such typifications and images are con-tested is not enough. We need to theorize the cul-tural contours within which these contestationstake place: to delineate the underlying grounds andthe limits on such public debates. This article seeks

to address these issues through examining whatMullins (1987) has identified as a primary task ofurban anthropology: namely, the links between dis-courses about local communities and the larger so-ciety. In this article I extend the discussion in theseworks into four unexplored directions. Two issuesrelate directly to Japan and two bear wider importfor urban anthropology and the study of complexsocieties.

My first point involves the type of communityI have chosen to examine. The overwhelming ma-jority of previousstudies of Japanese localities havebeen examinations of "traditional" or "historic"communities or neighborhoods (Ben-Ari 1992).Against the backgroundof these works the lack ofsystematic treatments of how newly built residen-tial communities figure in the public discourseabout the plight of contemporary Japan is readilyevident. I propose that the importance of studyingsuch localities lies not only in their quantitativesig-nificance: by some estimates more than a third ofJapan's population now resides in such recently es-tablished suburbs (Allinson 1979: 5). It is also im-portant because these communities are among theprimary means through which the ideology-thecentral symbols and goals-of Japan's new middle-class is discussed and debated. In other words, newresidential areas often provide concrete instancesthrough which different groups debate the socialtypifications and lifeways which have been shapedby this ideology. As Kelly (1990, 1986) puts it,both

officialpolicyandpublicopinion ave dealizedareeremployment n large organizations,meritocratic duca-tional redentialing,nda nuclear ivisionf laborbe-tweenworking usbandwho takescareand domesticmotherwho givescare (1990: 69).While these idealizations may contradict the reali-ties of life for many Japanese, this middle-classideology neverthelessdefines "standardsof achieve-ment, images of the desirable, and limits of the fea-sible" (p. 69).1 Along these lines, an examinationof the discourse about localities said to be popu-lated by representatives of the new middle classmay prove fruitful in furthering our understandingof both their "reputational content" and their usein broader debates about contemporary Japanesesociety.My second point stands in direct contradictionto much of the stress found in recent analyses. Totake two examples, while Martinez (1990) shows


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CONTESTED IDENTITIES 205howpeoplenow look for the "good" n the lost Ja-pan, Bestor(1989) illuminateshow the old urbanlabel of shitamachi s nowbeingreappliedo legiti-mate contemporary ommunity ife in Tokyo(seealso Dore 1978 and Smith 1988). In such worksthe accentis on a specificversionof the past:thebenevolent,harmonious, nd cooperative"histori-cal" community.These workschargethat in con-temporaryrepresentationshe "negative"or ad-verse features of past communities have beenglossed over. According to these studies, thisfavorableversionof ruraland urban ocalitieshasessentiallyreplacedor supplanted lder views.Butwhat of other images--of anti-democraticprac-tices, of conservativeattitudes towardauthority,andof social control-which have alsoguidedpost-warunderstandingsf various ocalities?I will ar-gue that these imagesstill figure n the contempo-rarydiscourseaboutlocalities,and that the newerimages have been graftedon, rather than havingreplaced,older ones.Accordingly,n my examina-tion I uncoverboth the complexity ndcontestationthat mark the discourseabout suchplaces.The third point is theoretical.I argue that"talk"aboutlocal communitiesany such places)includes assumptionsabout causality which areused to appraisereality.Here my study suggeststhe use of a certain concept, that of "folk"model-or alternatively "key scenario" (Ortner1973) or "schema" D'Andrade1992)-that mayallow us to ascertain the main elements of suchtalk. Robertson's1992) insightfulwork on a newsuburbof Tokyo,to put this generalpointby wayof a Japaneseexample,examines he practicesof"place-making"imed at transformingontempo-rarycommunitiesaccording o properties f "his-toric"villages.Yet she is unclearabout how thepeopleshe studiedthinkthesepracticeswill effectconcretechanges n their communities. wouldar-gue that in order to understand uch reasoningthere is a need to make explicit the assumptionsabouthow"tradition"s linked o socialactionandto personalcharacteristics. t is these purportedcausalchains whichundergird ssertions boutthereturn o "tradition" nd to "past"placesas basesforidentityand as remediesorcurrent ocial lls. Isuggest that we use the conceptof folk model inorder to delineatethe different evels and internalorganization f metaphorical sagethat come intoplay in talk about residential ommunities.Fourth,I arguethat the use of the folkmodelconceptallowsus to linkthought o action.Inother

words,my analysis houldnot be seenas Oust)an-otherexercisen delineatinghe ideationalormsofdiscourseaboutcommunity.ts focus is also onso-cial action and practice.This is a behavioralorpractical ocus(Agnew,Mercer,andSopher1984:2) becausemetaphors nd folk modelsof commu-nity providebasicpointsof reference or what so-cial scientistscall cognitive asks:describing,har-acterizing,analyzing,and evaluating uch places,and advisingand prescribinghow to change ormaintain hem. Hencemyfinalaim is to showhowtalk about the neighborhoodby various localgroups s constitutivein the sense of the practicalactualizationof ideas and images) of this verylocality.The CommunityHieidaira,the housingestate I studied (Ben-Ari1991a),offersa usefulentry ntoa considerationfthese issues. Hieidaira,which means "plain ofHiei," was developed n the late 1960s. It is setagainst the ratherpicturesqueHieizanmountainchainto the east of Kyoto'snorthern uburbs.To-getherwith a smallneighboring illage,Hieidairais part of an independent dministrative istrictwithinthe city of Otsu in Shiga prefecture. ni-tially developedas an area for second (summer)homes,the estate's ocationmade it economical orstandard esidential evelopments the urbancen-ters of Kyotoand Osakaexpanded n the 1970s.Hieidaira now resemblesmany other newly con-structedhousingestates in the country.Its threewardsare divided nto neat rectangularblocks ofdetacheddwellingsgivingthe area an appearanceof beingthrustuponthe mountains.As in manyJapaneseresidentialareas(Smith 1979:95), resi-dencestend to be owner-built nd thusappear essmonotonous than their Europeanor Americancounterparts.The estate has a populationof nearly3,000people,of which sarariiman(salariedemployees)are the largestminority.Whilewe shall return othis point shortly,suffice t to note here that othersizeable occupationalgroups include merchants,teachers,andartisans.Again, n wayssimilarotherJapanesesuburbs(Plath 1980:21), the tempoofdaily livingrevolves round he flowof people romthe communityn the morningand theirreturnatnight. Only on weekends,or occasionalholidays,are there many men aroundduringthe daytime.Hieidairapartakesof a dualism hat characterizes


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206 ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLYmany suburban communities: while it is linked po-litically and administratively to the city of Otsu(pop. 250,000), it is to the neighboring giant of Ky-oto (pop. 1.5 million) that most of the local resi-dents are oriented. It is to Otsu that they turn forpublic services (schools, libraries, welfare aid) andmajor utilities, but it is predominantly to Kyotothat they turn for jobs, higher education, and theprovisionof daily needs such as medical care, shop-ping, and entertainment.The Physical Setting: A Distant "Country"Let me begin with the physical imagery of the es-tate not only because it is the most tangible, butbecause it is also one of the most remarked uponaspects of the place. Among the hundred or socomments I have recorded about the place in myfieldnotes, two types were most common: remarksabout the locality's distance from urban centersand statements about its spaciousness. For exam-ple, local residents reported that when told aboutthe estate, outsiders' reactions were often sympa-thetic comments such as "it must be very difficultto live in Hieidaira because it is such a distantplace." Many non-natives referred to the area asan hekichi, a remote area inconvenient in terms ofaccess.

Interestingly, the impression of distance ap-pears to be related to a perception of Hieidaira asan "other" place, remote in an historical sense orremoved spatially from the confines of Japan's na-tional borders. Thus, outsiders often associated theestate with the Buddhist temples which lie atop ofMt. Hiei a few kilometers north of the estate. Inthis view Hieidaira is isolated just like this religiouscomplex (belonging to the Tendai sect) which hasfigured as a pilgrimage site for hundreds of years.One day a local resident, a professor of Chinesestudies at a private university in Kyoto, explained:

Historically peaking his areahas an imageof beingfaraway. I think its has to do with the image of Mt Hieiwhich s a deepandfar away place; hat'swhythe imageof the neighborhoods fused with this religious image.The name Hieidairais written with the same Chineseideogram[as Mt. Hiei] and that's why peopletend tothinkof this as beingin the middleof the mountains ndbeinga place "faraway." Peopleare reallysurprised olearn that it takes me only twenty minutes to reach myuniversity.

Similar explanations that I received for the imageof distant place associated the estate with Kyoto's

northern neighborhoods. In the past these areashave been perceived by people living in the ancientcapital as being far away from the city's center.The image of Hieidaira as an "other place" isalso related to its spatial surroundings. Reactionsto the mountains and greenery surrounding theneighborhood are epitomized by those of a doctorwho runs a small clinic in the estate who told methat "Hieidaira is a little like America." Otherpeople talked of Hieidaira as being like "Europe,""France," "Germany," and, in a Japanese twist to"other" places, like "Hokkaido." Hokkaido is Ja-pan's northernand most spacious major island andin the popular mind is often associated with theambience of foreign countries. Stating the resem-blance between the estate and foreign places servedat one and the same time to play up the "natural"advantages of the area-the good air, expansive-ness, and greenery purportedlyfound outside of Ja-pan or in the northern island-and to contrastthem to the usual plight of urban life in Japan.It is around this contrast that people's com-ments tended to conflate the "physical"side of thearea with its social ambience. Much of this im-agery has to do with the countrified atmosphereofthe locality. My fieldnotes are replete with testimo-nies about the "calm" or "leisurely" (hissori, yut-tari) feelings elicited by the area. Frequently, suchqualities were compared with the characteristics ofpeople's previous places of residence. One woman,in a rather humorous tone, told me of growing upin the center of Kyoto and of having to get used tothe country (inaka) with all of its creepy, crawlyinsects when she came to the neighborhood. An-other man used the label "country" when tellingfellow workers in Kyoto that he "commutes fromthe country, a place of good air."A Governing Identity: Urban Ambience andEducationYet despite its location in the mountains, sur-rounded by forests and streams, the neighborhoodhas-as I was told time and again by people bothwithin and outside the area, and during both peri-ods of fieldwork-a distinctly urban mark. Oneprime expression if its urban character is the con-stant mention of the variety of its residents. Suchcommentary about local diversity obviously servedto differentiate the estate from older, purportedlymore homogeneous villages. But on anotherlevel-that of "folk" understandings of cit-


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CONTESTED DENTITIES 207ies-these comments underscored what Fischer(1976: 37) has so aptly illuminated as the socialmark of cities: the existence of a variety of separatesocial worlds. Along these lines, depictingHieidaira as diverse is a way of characterizing theway many of its residents maintain intense net-works of ties external to the neighborhood throughwhich flow assorted people and meanings.The following excerpt, from a conversation Ihad with the head teacher of the local school, ex-presses this point graphically and links it to an-other purportedlyurban trait:

Listen,t's as though heytooka multi-storypartmentbuildingndturnedt over:peopleustsortof "spilledout."The peoplehere live in private,detachedhousesbutthecontactbetweenhem s likethatin an apartmentbuilding. heyare notreally onsciousf the areaas acommunity,ndyousometimesetthefeelinghattheythink nlyof themselves,sortof selfishness.

Another man, a real estate agent, commented thatHieidaira was very Tokyo-like (Tookyoteki): livingin the area are people from a variety of places,with a distinct feeling among them that they cando what they feel like doing without others'intervention.But more is said to mark the neighborhoodthan urban heterogeneity and self-centeredness.The educational achievements of Hieidaira's resi-

dents repeatedly came up in interviews and conver-sations. This point may be clarified through thelists residents and outsiders provided when I askedabout the kind of people living in the estate. Nodoubt reflecting the importance of employment asthe core of social identity in all industrializedsocie-ties, these inventories were almost always lists ofoccupations. While lists varied somewhat betweenindividuals, all included the following core of voca-tions: sarariiman, doctors, merchants, lawyers (Inever encounteredany), and school teachers. In ad-dition, a number of other, rather special, categoriesof people were said to inhabit the neighborhood:musicians ("enough to set up a whole orchestra,"as one man exaggeratedly put it), artisans (usingtraditional forms found in Kyoto), artists, butabove all university lecturers.Thus Hieidaira has a rather strong "governingidentity" (Suttles 1972: 248-250): it is said to bemarked by people with high educational achieve-ment. A teacher at the local school (she livesoutside the area) told me that this was "a haireberu (high-level) area, one of university teach-ers," and a number of people told me the residents

"have a high level of knowledge" (chishiki gatakai). In its most overstated form the asser-tion-put to me by numerouspeople-was that theestate is inhabited by many Kyoto Universityteachers. Kyoto University is the second-ranked in-stitution of higher education in Japan, and cer-tainly the first-rankedin this area of the country.

This governing identity is encapsulated by themost common label used for people living in the es-tate: interi. The dictionary translation of interi isintellectuals or the intelligentsia, but in more com-mon parlance it means highly educated people. Asone astute local observerput it, the academic back-ground of a graduate of an elite university is oftenperceived as a measure of that person's success,hard work, and intelligence. More generally in Ja-pan, such people are usually accordedrespect, pres-tige, and above average salaries. The image of in-teri, however, includes not only an emphasis oneducational achievement, but also elements of po-litical progressivism (a confrontational posture toauthority, and "sticking" to one's rights).

The labelling of the neighborhoodas interi hasroots in the 1970s when residents (led by a numberof university lecturers) organized a series of cam-paigns to force local government and the privatedeveloperof the estate to providesuch amenities asa new sewerage system, kindergartens, school, andplaygrounds(Ben-Ari 1991a: 113-114). So success-ful were the residents that one head of the neigh-borhood association was labelled by a former em-ployee of the developing company as "an expert inhuman engineering, a specialist in putting demandsto local government officials and getting their co-operation." What is of significance from the pointof view of the present analysis, however, is that thelabel "interi," originally attached only to the localleadership, was generalized into a designation forthe whole area. Two points merit mention in thisregard. First, the estate's identity was not solelythe result of processes by which only highly edu-cated people moved into the area, for in reality in-migration was very diverse. Rather, it crystallizedout of the management of the community's "exter-nal relations": out of the success of the originalleaders in forging a sense of local identity, and thelabelling of the neighborhoodby outsiders such asofficials at the city office. Second, the general labelof interi was the outcome of amplifying small dif-ferences between the Hieidaira and other essen-tially similar neighborhoods. Hieidaira's minorityof university teachers began to be taken as repre-


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208 ANTHROPOLOGICALUARTERLYsentative of the whole area. These differences werethen taken to be fully fledged representationsof thecommunity's governing identity. Thus, Hieidairabegan to be, and still is, called an interi no chi-iki-an area of the highly educated.

Closely related to the image of educationalachievement is a conception of relatively high eco-nomic standing. The same teacher who used theimage of an apartment house said, "The level ofpeople here is higher than the average in the coun-try. Both in their income and in their awareness ofeducation they are the elite (joryu, also upper clas-ses)." Referring to the Hieidairaites, a city officialtold me that "their prosperityis very conspicuous,"while a young school teacher said that some houseslooked as though they had come out of home fash-ion magazines.Such labels, however, are not merely abstractdesignations of the neighborhood's main qualities,but also figure in the way people reason about itssocial dynamics. Talk about the tone set by the in-teri of the area revolves aroundtwo issues: a highlycompetitive "passion" for education and an asser-tive politics. A member of the city's Board of Edu-cation stressed that Hieidaira was similar to manyof the newly built areas of the city populated bypeople who put a heavy emphasis on education. Ina similar manner the principal of the MiddleSchool to which the children of Hieidaira com-mute, observed that like residents of other such ar-eas, Hieidaira's parents are very enthusiastic abouteducation and participate avidly in school relatedactivities. The children, he added, usually get highgrades. In one meeting with the local people themayor said that this was an area with many "highlevel" people and that he had heard from teachersthat the estate's children, as well, were on a "highlevel." Such comments simultaneously asserted thetypicality of Hieidaira as an area populated by anew generationof people educated after the SecondWorld War and its distinctiveness as the rather ex-treme embodiment of interest in education.

Images of Political ActionTeachers at all levels-kindergartens and elemen-tary and middle schools--often placed the enthusi-asm for education in a causal scheme related topolitics. In their thinking the label "interi" pro-vided a bridge between education and politics bylinking the stress on education to the articulationoflocal demands. Accordingly, I was often told that

parents in the area had an interest in educationand therefore came forward with many demands;or, that the heavy stress on achievement at homeled to constant claims put to educational authori-ties. Almost all of the educators thus underscoredwhat they perceived to be a widespread senti-ment-again, Hieidaira being both a typical andan extreme example of such expectations-thateducational authorities be responsive to the de-mands of parents.The political imagery of the estate combinesdepictions of local people's attitude to authorityand their ability to mobilize towards collective ac-tion. The image of Hieidaira's aggressive progres-sivism came up time and again in conversationswith people who have (or have had) dealings incity-level politics: leaders and activists in neighbor-hood organizations, politicians and city bureau-crats, and school teachers and principals. A localresident, herself a kindergarten teacher workingoutside the neighborhood,directly linked collectiveparticipation and "outspoken" dealings with au-thority to education:

Becauseyou have many peoplewho have a high educa-tional level here, they tend to be independent;nd theygo directlyto heads of departmentsn the city govern-ment,to the mayoror to people n charge.There s muchless fear of going to managersamongthem than amongotherpeople ivingin Otsu.

This attributionwas echoed (in a disapprovingtonewe shall return to presently) by a self-employedman in his fifties:I see this as partof whathas beenhappeningn Japan nthe last twentyor thirtyyears.Hieidaira s Japan n min-iature.It reflectsgeneral hingsthat aregoingon outside:the strengthening f people'spoweror citizens'power.Ifsomethingoesnotwork ut,orif theydon'tike hean-swer the city government ives them then they go run-ningoff to the newspapers.

Another woman related the stance towards author-ity to income, occupation, and exposure toAmerica, and through these elements to the futureimage of Japan:

Peoplen Hieidairaaveanindependentncome nd n-dependentwork and in this respect they are differentfrom other people.This is a general problem n Japanand notonlyin Otsu:the relationbetweenpeopleand theadministration. It should be like, well, the grass rootsmovementn America,or the movement gainstthe warin Vietnam. One has, as an individual . . to indepen-dentlydecide about one's environment nd whether hereis a need to go against the political or administrative


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CONTESTED IDENTITIES 209authorities.

Her words were echoed time and again by personswho linked the concentration of people who deal inknowledge to a progressive political stance. Thusan ex-principal of the school made a point of con-trasting Hieidaira with old neighborhoods or vil-lages in which the dominant force was usually alocal oligarchy. "Hieidaira is a good example," hesaid, "it is exceptionally open and democratic."It is important to understand the wider con-text within which this kind of talk takes place.Since at least the end of the 1960s public strugglesin Japan have been influenced by a variety ofgroups: citizens' and environmental movements,consumer cooperatives, students' and welfaregroups, and some labor unions and political parties.These movements have succeeded not only in plac-ing new issues on the country's political agenda,but in changing some of the premises on the basisof which public struggles are carried out. Theyhave been instrumental in crystallizing the ideathat Japan's citizens have something called"rights" which the system owes them, and havetaken the lead in pushing for the establishment ofdemocratic procedures for expressing their de-mands and striving for their acceptance (Mckean1981: 267-268; Pharr 1990: 11). In this sense theHieidairaites are taken to be representatives ofthese new kinds of groups and attitudes.There are yet other implications of the interilabel. The owner of a local steak-house bluntlylinked interi-related occupations to the resources atthe disposal of local people:

Listen, the peoplewho work in the city government reweak in terms of intelligence; hey're stupid. For themyoureducationalbackgrounds the mostimportant hingbecause n order o get into the municipalityhey have topasstests like to get into universities.That'swhy it's im-portant hat in the neighborhoodssociation herebe uni-versityteachers.The local residents, keenly aware of the power ofthe interi image take full advantage of it. A retiredKyoto University professor told me how, whenmeeting local government officials, he would pro-duce his meishi, his name card. It has, he said,

great name value; it makes a strong impression on localadministrators and predisposes them to take matters Iraise in a more serious way. That's probably one of thereasons why they recruited me into the neighborhood as-sociation, so that every once in a while they could"parade" me in front of government officials.

These passages underscore how, once the identityof the locality has emerged, it can, in itself, be usedas a resource. In other words, "intellectuals" inHieidaira provided not only advice and leadership,but on another level their very status began to beused as a resource itself. Talk about a locality'sidentity, to put this another way, involves not onlyabstract niceties of rights and entitlements, butperhaps no less importantly, entails analyses of thepracticalities of politics.Materialism, Individualism, and EvaluationYet for all of this, the qualities associated withHieidaira are rarely described only in positive oraffirmative tones. They all belong to what may betermed a contested terrain in Japan's public cul-ture. The debate about these qualities centers onthe value of (Western) individualism and democ-racy, the excesses of competition, and the loss of aquintessential Japanese identity.Materialism: If awareness of consumer issuesand of the powerof consumergroups is the positiveside of people's reaction to increased tangiblewealth, materialism is its negative side. One ele-ment often cited in critical terms in this regardwasthe "showiness" of the neighborhood's residents.For instance, a number of people mentioned the os-tentatiousness of some of the houses and furnish-ings. Another indicator of residents' pretentiousself-advertising was a Japanese version of "keepingup with the Tanakas." One anthropologist living inthe area characterized what was happening amonga coterie of friends as a sort of "potlatch":

We started t off by invitinga few friendsaroundhere toa party.Soon we begana roundof goingto each other'shouses,drinkingbeer,sake andwhisky,singingkaraoke,and sometimesdancing.Prettysoon some of the originalfriendsbeganto invitemorepeople o the partiesandthegroupgrewfromabout16 to about 32. It was too much,it becamea kindof potlatch:peoplebeganto notice andcommentabouteachother's urniture, nd whattheyhadboughtfor the kitchen. It's crazy!Self-Centeredness: A closely related themepervading people's comments about the material-ism said to characterizethe neighborhood,was self-centeredness. One woman who runs a local art gal-lery told me how surprised she was when she

moved into the neighborhood.She had thought thatthe neighborhoodwas populated by cultured people(bunkajin), but then saw these very people care-lessly throw out their garbage on days when there


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210 ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLYwas no collection. "It's as if they're not concerned,"she said, "when their garbage bags tear and makethe whole street dirty." An elderly man talked ofthe estate's young mothers as tonde-iru okaasan:"flowery"mothers who are basically interested onlyin going out and having a good time. One of thelocal newspaper agents said that there were moreeducated people here who read a variety of newspa-pers and journals, but that they were also markedby a sort of individualism. He linked education tosnobbery, and to a lack of concern with others. A60-year old resident specializing in the propertymarket, contended that

there are a lot of peopleherewhohavea feelingof "onlymy (own)house."Theydon'tcare whatothers hink,theyhave heir wnwayandwant o live twithoutnter-ference.t'ssucha Westerntyleof living: eoplewhowent o America, rance,rEurope,aw ife thereanddecidedo livelikethat here.Thatuniversityrofessorwasin Virginiaor his sabbaticalnd he told me thatHieidairaemindedimofAmerica.hismann theartsgallerywas in France nd wants o live like a Frenchpainter. ... Hieidaira is so European,not very Japa-nese-like.

In a few words this man not only posits a causalchain linking international influence to self-centeredness,but drives his point home by stressingthe alien quality of such an individualistic orienta-tion. The reasoning here seems to resonate withwider assumptions found in Japan, and to answercertain expectations about what it means to be Jap-anese. Japanese travel brochures often use suchphrases an "my pace" or "my plan" to make tour-ists realize that they can do as they want once theyhave escaped the confines of Japanese society(Moeran 1983: 105). Thus, according to the logicof this man's assertion, it is the same kind of es-cape from "Japanese" norms of behavior which isrisky within neighborhoodssuch as Hieidaira, be-cause it can lead to a too individualistic stress. Toreiterate a point made earlier, the comparisonwithAmerica or with Europe is not limited to the physi-cal side of the estate, but perhaps more signifi-cantly it is a means to attribute certain social char-acteristics to the area. The problem is not onlymaterialism in itself. As Hidaka (1984: 68) asserts,the problem with materialism is its implication forthe "public": materialism leads to individualismwhich leads to lack of involvement in communalmatters (cf. Nelson 1992: 92).The Excesses of Education: In the debateabout the excesses of educational achievement localmatters are even more explicitly linked into a com-

plex discourse about the ills of contemporaryJa-pan. Here I can offer only a small number of ex-amples. A resident of the estate, a carpenter whowas born in and still works in Otsu, stated:

I feel that the competitive pirithereis verystrong.Thisis probablyelatedo thehigheducationf theparents,doctors,manyuniversityeachers:heirchildren re re-ally smart and manyof themgo tojuku [private upple-mentaryschools] from a very early age and they aretaughtthis sense of competitiveness. wouldn't ike mydaughter o go to a juku. I want her to be muchfreer; ocomehomeanddo all sortsof things.On the one hand, this passage underscoresthe ef-fects of Japan's "examination hell." The term re-fers to the grueling preparations for entrance ex-aminations into the country's top universities,which are said to involve over-pressuredchildren,rote learning, and a basic lack of fun (Rohlen1983: 77; 1987; Goodman 1989). The carpenter'scomments well underline the prospects of hisdaughter's having to enter such an educational"rat-race."On the other hand, this passage under-scores how this competition is localized, in an areaof interi. The very act of living in such an area, thisman feels, forces his daughter to compete. A 40-year old mother of two school age children, talkedin similar terms about the local primary school:

Becausepeoplehere tend to be moreeducated, hereisstrong ressureoreducation,nenthusiasmoreduca-tion.Thismay ead o sideswhich renotsogood or hechildren,otsohealthy. here restrong emandsutonthekids, ometimesoostrong.Moreover, others ithhigher ducationend o beverypridefulnd o branchoff ntovariousactionsroundhetypeof educationys-tem they would ike.Many polemics about the afflictions of theeducational system focused on these mothers, regu-

larly labelled kyooiku mama. This term means"education mama," but as one local wit translatedit for me, its connotation is more akin to "educa-tion-crazy mother." While not entirely a negativedesignation, it does indicate a radical stress onachievement. One teacher, again invoking the im-agery of Hieidaira as social microcosm, said thatthe neighborhoodwas characteristic of all of Japanin terms of the anxieties suffered by families domi-nated by such women, but hastened to add in amuch more positive light that it was definitely eas-ier to teach the children of such mothers becausethey tend to be more inquisitive and open tolearning.Along with the competitive education and ma-


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212 ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLYSimilar critiques were directed towards the po-litical organization in the locality. The head of the

neighborhoodassociation (an executive in a Kyotodepartment store) talked about the locality's occu-pational make-up:

A lot of universityeachers,self-employed, rtists,andsoon live here. On the one hand,this makesfor peoplewhoare willing to be mobilized for the gains of the wholeneighborhood.On the otherhand,this makesthingsdis-jointed: t is verydifficult o get some kindof uniformityof opinionbeforeputtingdemands o the administration.This view of the difficulties in reaching a consensusis shared by city officials. Here are the words of anofficial from the department liaising with theneighborhoodassociations:

In Hieidairayou have peoplewith all sorts of opinions,from all sorts of places, and with all sorts of ways ofthinking.Under these circumstances here is very littlelocal solidarity.Maybethis will come aboutin the nextgeneration,but now it's difficult to get them to worktogether.As yet other government officials put it, the resi-dents' individualism hindered local communicationand led to an inability to reach decisions.

Similarly, some persons linked the occupa-tional make-up and the educational level of theHieidairaites to lack of involvement in communalaffairs. The head of the local neighborhoodassocia-tion talked of the snobbery of many universityteachers and doctors, who thought they were some-how "superior"and thus unwilling to participate incommunity functions (such as sports days) or incommunity action (such as signing petitions). In-terestingly, this view is shared by many of the po-litically progressiveresidents of Hieidaira. One wo-man (a participant in the students' movements ofthe late 1960s) observed:

There s a bad side to middle-classness. eoplewith edu-cation and money have a lot of pride.Sometimestheybecome ndifferent;heythinkonlyof theirlivesandtheirbusiness.This is the negativeside of individualism. hatwhy it's sometimesdifficult o set up a citizens' move-ment in such a place [as Hieidaira].The stress on the negative consequences ofHieidaira's social characteristics is related, in turn,to a set of "solutions" which are aimed at rectify-ing such social ills and which have been at theheart of much public debate in the past fewdecades.

Organized Solutions: The Intentional Creation ofFurusatoWhen I mentioned the rather weak participationofHieidairaites in the voluntary fire brigade, an offi-cial from the city's fire fighting unit said:

In Hieidairayou have a hodgepodge f peoplefromallsortsof places ike Osakaand Kyotoand they havelittleawarenessndcommitmento the area.That'swhy tsdifficult to get volunteers for fire fighting....Hieidaira'sthe same as areas where there are mostlyapartments,igapartments,heremostpeopleive nanareaonlyfor a short imeandhavenoattachmentndlittle solidarity.Any cooperation etween uchpeopleandthe [local] area is difficult.This comment includes more than a portrayal ofthe qualities attendant on urban residences. Itposits two elements which many people see as a"resolution" to the social maladies of newly builtareas like Hieidaira. The first is a causal modellinking time of residence in the area--or more gen-erally local historical depth-to the emergence ofsolidarity and attachment. The second is a postu-late that local solidarity and attachment are pre-conditions for the emergence of communal involve-ment action. Implicit in these contentions-as inthe assertions underlying the excerpt placed at thearticle's beginning-is a solution based on the crea-tion of afurusato, a "home-place"or "home-town"in Hieidaira. At base this solution involves the es-tablishment-within new residential communi-ties-of the sentiments of belonging and involve-ment which are said to have characterized "old"villages. A nostalgia for, and a desire to be associ-ated with, the past is universal to all rapidlychang-ing societies (Davis 1979). But the contents, themeanings, and the means by which this quest is un-dertaken shift with the context (Stewart 1988:227). Thus the question becomes one of delineatingthe peculiarly Japanese version of the past which isinvolved here (Ben-Ari 1991b).It is useful to follow the lines of Robertson's(1992) argument, as she has done much to clarifythe notion of furusato-zukuri (the making of ahome-place). The dominant representation offurusato is infused with nostalgia, a dissatisfactionwith the present on the grounds of a rememberedor imagined past plenitude (p. 14). As Allinson(1978: 458) notes, Japanese scholars, critics, novel-ists, and poets have all engaged in a orgy of publicdisplay over the loss of community, the sense of an-onymity, and the widespreadisolation that are said


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CONTESTED IDENTITIES 213to afflict urban Japan. Since the early 1970s, how-ever, academics and intellectuals, government offi-cials and party activists, as well as ordinary citi-zens have begun to call for a resolution to thesecircumstances. They have discussed such conceptsas komyuniti (community) (Ben-Ari 1991a), maitaun (my town) (Tokyo Metropolitan Government1982), machi-zukuri (creating a hometown)(Nussbaum 1985; Bestor 1992), or chihoo no jidai(the age of the local) (Smith 1988: 381). But asRobertson (1987) astutely observes, all of theseterms revolve around the notion of "native-placebuilding."The notion of furusato-zukuri is a practicalproject. Essentially, it involves remaking the pastas the condition for bringing about a social trans-formation in the present: the idealized characteris-tics and practices of the "village of the past" areused as prescriptions for creating a similar set oftraits and conventions in contemporary residentialcommunities (Robertson 1992: 9). The modes ofsociability of the "good old days" which were basedon harmony and camaraderie, while long sinceabandoned or dismantled, are taken to be capableof revivification and reconstruction. Smith (1988)observes that behind this term lie some ratherstrong assumptions about

the need o revitalizeraditionypromotinghe revivalof customaryractices,estivals nd the like,and toreestablishhatare seenas theideals hatoncecharac-terized he localcommunity,he furusato . . [whichweredestroyed]ythe linked orces f industrialization,urbanization,nd he decline f agriculturep.381).Yet the creation of a "native-place" in suchcommunities as Hieidaira reveals the complexityand the ironies of recreating "past things" in theframeworkof larger scale urban or suburban local-

ities. A number of suggestions raised at a meetingbetween the mayor and Hieidaira's communityleaders were enlightening in this respect. Suchmeetings were held in all of Otsu's neighborhoodsthroughout the early and mid-1980s. The mayoropened this particular gathering with a commentthat sums up some of the contradictions of Japan's"internationalization" by mentioning that he hadbeen to Europe to learn the subject of machi-zukuri (city "making").2During the meeting various details of theneighborhood's infrastructure and services werediscussed. But about midway through the assemblyother issues began to be raised when the mayorsuggested that as part of creating a sentiment of

community in Hieidaira the locals should cultivatetraditional Japanese dances (odori). Along withmunicipal officials he continued, like many con-servative politicians (Nihon Fujin Dantai Rengokai1980; Imamura 1987: 9), to propose setting up avariety of "citizens' festivals" such as arts meet-ings, exhibitions, or a city citizens' sports-day.Such community related activities, he reasoned,may aid in inculcating the spirit of the traditionallocality with its emphasis on self-help, self-reliance,and solidarity. Indeed, Robertson (1987: 124) hasshown how citizens' festivals are staged in citiesthroughout Japan as a conscious effort on the partof municipal governmentsto reclaim from inexora-ble urbanization,and more recently "international-ization," the indigenous village within the city.3

But all of these kinds of suggestions should notbe understood as rather simplistic manipulationsofresidents by institutional interests. The promulga-tion of such evocative catch-words as fursato-zukuri or machi-zukuri is, to be sure, related to theattempt by various levels of government to dothings such as implement social change (Kelly1986), promote tourism and generate local reve-nues (Ivy 1988; Graburn 1983: 25), strengthenneighborhood associations (Takayose 1979), andcreate slogans for political platforms (Seah 1989;Nagashima 1981). But to overstress the politicaland economic interests linked to the promulgationof such terms is to lose sight of their power anddepth for modern Japanese. It is to lose sight of theplace of locality-and its festivals and artifacts-inthe search for personal and collective meaning intoday's world.

These dimensions were brought home to merather poignantly in other suggestions raised at themeeting with the mayor. Speaking in clear termsan elderly pensioner asked the municipality forhelp in finding place for a cemetery in the area. Hecontinued that until the age of 60 he didn't thinkabout these things, but after he dies he would likehis children to be able to visit his grave in the area.Taking up this point, the head of the estate's old-folks club explained that a cemetery was necessary"as it is the foundation of a furusato. It is the wayin which everyone can take root in the area."

In Hieidaira it is the older and middle-agedindividuals, raised in prewar villages or urbanneighborhoods, who call for the construction of alocal Shinto shrine. Pointing to the existence ofsuch a sanctuary in a neighboring village, thesepeople justify their claims in terms of the impor-


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214 ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLYtance of shrines in ensuring the estate's intergener-ational continuity. A retired civil-servant fromHieidaira talked about the advantages of joiningthe adjacent village in an administrative union ofneighborhoodassociations:

There re a lot of good hings bout he union. t'sim-portanthat thevillageoin n furusato-zukuri.hevil-lagehasa long history;heyhavea Shinto hrine ndthree[Buddhist]emples.Herein Hieidairawe havemanynteri,ome fwhom on'twant shrine,nd omeof whomdo wanta shrine... Personally,think t'simportanto havea shrine, ven to join the village'sshrine;venf it costsmoney.Alternativelye couldointhebigshrinenOtsu;Hieidaira ill mprovef we willbeable oholdvariouservicesike hememorialerviceforthe dead.The head priest of this large Shinto shrine locateda few kilometers from the housing estate said tome,

Thenewpeople f theestate ften ome oparticipatentheactivitiest our hrine.All of themwereborn nrela-tivelyraditionallaceso that heycomeoutof a home-town kokyoo) ackground;heyknowwhata festivals,thesongs,hedances,hedrums,heatmosphere. hentheymoventoHieidairahey ook or hese hingsntheshrines roundhe area.Another segment of the local populace, over-

whelmingly parents of children at school, not onlytake an active part in organizing, but are continu-ally defending the Buddhist children's festivalwhich is held during the summer. Their explana-tion--directed at some critics citing the need toleave religious affairs to individual choice-is thatwithout such religious practices the children willfind it difficult to develop a notion of spiritual mat-ters and an attachment to the area. Similarly, it isa small group of intellectuals-authors, social com-mentators, and journalists-who talk of the need toarrange for a chronicle of the estate. As in otherJapanese communities (Brown 1979), writing a lo-cal history is seen as a way to create a sense ofplace. While I was doing fieldwork,the book to bebased on my doctoral thesis was envisaged as onesuch document.The importance local residents attach to festi-vals is not limited to religious or "spiritual"events.Such occasions as bazaars, shows, hikes, trips, sum-mer camps, or singing competitions organized byneighborhood groups are also considered valuable.But what is evident in regard to these latter kindsof activities is the extent to which Hieidaira's resi-dents recognize that these must be consciously and

intentionally organized. This is no mean point, forit underscores how, in the contexts of complex ur-ban societies, it is only organizationsthat can makearrangements for large-scale localities. InHieidaira-as in Japan in general-it is throughthe activities of a host of committees, clubs, as-sociations, and other organized groups that the cre-ation of a sense of locality can be actualized.In Hieidaira the need for organized action, in-tentionally arranged large-scale endeavors, as aremedy for the lack of local solidaritywas accentedby the president of the PTA:

It's hard ostrike pcontacts ere.Thekidsmaygettoknow hosewho iveontheir treet,buta littlefartherawayt becomesifficult. hat'swhy chools importantforcreatingriendships.t takes ime,and hat'swhyweneed activities ike dance parties,bazaars, ecture meet-ings,andrice-ballsmaking arties.The example of the annual sports-day (Ben-Ari 1986) held in Hieidaira may further illuminatethe importance of organized action for local resi-dents. A member of Hieidaira's sports committeerelated the significance of the day to the process of

community-building:Oneof themostmportantays nwhich eighborhoodsareformeds theprocessywhich eople ecomeamil-iarwith achother.The mportancefthesports-dayiesin thepossibilitiest providesorsuch hings.

Time and again, the head of the sports committeestressed that such occasions were especially impor-tant in areas like Hieidaira where there are hardlyany communal festivals and functions and rela-tively little komiyunikeishun (communication) be-tween people. But the very scale of such events be-gins to change the quality of participationand theexpectations attendant upon such participation.The observationsof the head of the neighborhoodassociation about the sports-day at one and thesame time played up the significanceof such eventsand underlined a different set of attitudes towardsthe locality:

The sports-days the festival matsuri)of the wholearea.There replenty f peoplewhowant o takepart n thewhole affairwithits livelyandenjoyable tmosphere.Butother peoplenonethe less feel that takingpart in sucheventsposesa restriction n their free time . . . Sunday.Thus alongside a harking back to thepast-and in a way alongside a harking to the fu-ture-"village" is also a stress on the importanceof the right "not to neighbor." At one and the


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CONTESTED IDENTITIES 215same time, the same people may argue for settingup a local shrine engendering local solidarity, andargue for building a community where mindingone's own business is a prime value. These senti-ments can be found not only among younger mem-bers of the community, as I found out when I askedan elderly professor of Buddhist studies about hisideas of an ideal neighbor. Before replying, he gotup and fetched a book of Chinese proverbs. Hepainstakingly translated a proverb by Confuciusinto English: "The communication of gentlemen islike water." Giving a little chuckle, he continued inJapanese, "It isn't like milk or juice, you see. Thiskind of communication is brief and frank. It in-volves little interference in each other's affairs andno real commitment." Thus for all of the stress onfurusato-zukuri, many people said that it was alsoimportant to preserve the atmosphere of non-inter-ference and minimal contact with neighbors. Theymay hark back to an idealized version of the oldvillage, but the freedom "not to participate" is justas important: they want the freedom to choosewhether to take part in the "village of the past" orto withhold their participation.These ambivalences bespeak related doubtsabout the artificiality of attempting to "traditional-ize" modern settings. Following the sports-day inwhich members of the estate's neighboring villagehad participated, I interviewed an elderly memberof the neighborhoodassociation. The women's asso-ciation of the village had performed a traditionalJapanese dance during the interval between thesports-day's two parts. He began rather conde-scendingly and then spoke of the incongruityof thesetting:

They thevillagers]reprovincialhookenteki).hishasgoodsides to it like in theirexcellent articipationnsports vents ndother ommunityctivities. ut t alsohas funnysides,like whenthey got up at the intermissionand dressedup in traditionalclothes and danced thattraditionaldance. It gaveme a funny feeling.It didn't fitin;a traditionalancen thesports ay.

This passages underscores the discomfort manypeople feel with the synthetic creation of tradi-tional practices in inappropriate contexts. Heseemed to be saying that there are appropriateplaces for the expressionof the village's traditional-ity. To take up a point from Hannerz (1992: 133),if nostalgia is one kind of thought and expressiongenerated under the encounter between present dif-ficulties and a certain perspective towards one'spast, then irony is another.

Conclusion

In this article I have examined the talk aboutnewly built residential areas populated by repre-sentatives of Japan's new middle-class. I began bysituating my argument in relation to a number ofrecent studies which have examined idealized rep-resentations of "communities of the past." Theseworks have furthered our understandingof what isentailed by "talk" about such localities. As theyshow, such discourse is related both to the "reputa-tional content" of a locality and to the way the lo-cality is used as a medium for discussing wider is-sues. Yet I would propose that my study bearswider import both for the study of Japanese com-munities and for the more general analyses of lo-calities in complex industrialized societies. By wayof conclusion let me underscore a number of issues.

First, I have contended that understandingdiscourse about local communities involves juxta-posing two levels of analysis: the local and the na-tional. I use the word juxtapose, because it is notonly a matter of how localities are represented ac-cording to the logics of national debates about a"vanishing" tradition or a new kind neighborhood.It is also a matter of how wider understandingsaremobilized by people in their dialogue with a varietyof significant others about local identity. The na-tional discourse is actualized in-and fixes the con-tours of-local dialogue. In this respect, Hieidairais marked by a plurality of images. While it iscountry-fled in one sense, it is definitely not thecountry of the "old" Japan in another sense. Beingboth urban and an area of the highly educated it istaken to be representativeof a new type of commu-nity which is characteristic of post-war Japan. Inthis manner talk about Hieidaira is talk of aboutthe new middle class and what it represents. Moregenerally, talk of such localities is part of widerJapanese discourse about modernity, nostalgia, thepolitics of civic involvement, and (interestingly)about Japan's internationalization.

The second point is related to the causal as-sumptions underlying the discourse on contempo-rary localities. This point is clearest in regard tothe terms "past" and "tradition." The superiorityof the "past" is not simply an abstract idea, butone based on invoking-sometimes implicitly andother times explicitly-a causal scheme. "Tradi-tion" is seen to grant a local community strength incommunal participation and action by providingthe locality with a sense of solidarity and unity. In


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216 ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLYother words, in the Japanese folk theory of tradi-tionality, community-wide activities are both in-dicators and products of the power of the commu-nity which is (in turn) based on its "past" legacy.Yet for all the stress on the edifying nature of tra-dition, there is an accompanying discourse aboutthe disadvantages of the "village of the past." Thisdiscourse focuses-just like the nostalgia-drivendiscourse-in part on real and in part on imaginedplaces. But what is evident is that the previousimages of "traditional"communities as locations of"old ways of thinking" and feudal attitudes whichlead to strong social control have not been com-pletely supplanted. In contemporary Japan asser-tions about "old" places as repositories of tradi-tional values compete with claims about suchplaces as exemplars of pre-war values.The third point is, as we saw, that the localityis not only a vehicle for addressing wider issues,but is linked to concrete prescriptions for action.The folk models of community predicate (againwhether implicitly or explicitly) certain causalschemes dictating how to inculcate certain valuedor vilified practices and attitudes. Here Hieidairaprovides a good example of the complexities in-volved. The neighborhood is, on the one hand, amodel in itself for imparting certain attitudes to-wards education, politics, and neighboring. On theother hand, the estate is often seen as a placewhich should be modelled on the traditional com-munity of yesteryear. Thus Hieidaira figures in thecontentions of how to actualize (Suttles 1971: 254)expectations drawn from a larger inventory of fan-tasies which appeal to contemporary Japanesepeople.4This idea brings me to the final point of im-port for the anthropology of complex societies. An-thropologicaldiscussions of such societies (Lofgren

1989) have long been dominated by analyses at thelevel of villages and neighborhoods,of communitiesand subcultures, or of "ethnic" and "minority"groups. Only more recently have anthropologicalinquiries focused on a grander scale to ask ques-tions about the wider processes that keep parts ofthis society together or separate them. But as Ihave shown here, the move to a more macro focusshould be undertakencautiously. The current stresson openness and the pluralism of perspectives nowin fashion in anthropology (Gupta and Ferguson1992; Cooke 1990; Watts 1992) should not blind usto the "topography,"that is, to the broad contoursor configurations,of possibilities within which theexperiences of place in our societies take place.

By focusing on the specific folk models orschemas that are used to make sense of the world, Ihave tried to map some of the limits of the plural-ism entailed by newer approaches. For example,the reality of the residents of Hieidaira comprisesalimited field of issues such as leisure and collectivecommitment, individualism and groupishness, ordemocratic rights and traditional authority rela-tions. While these issues, of course, change at thesame time that self-definitions of Japanese change,they nevertheless encompass the broad possibilitieswithin which localism and "Japaneseness"are de-fined. We must be wary of an all too neat emphasison the "invention"of Japanese traditions. To reit-erate, a stress on contestation, mutability, andchange does not imply that "anything goes." Wemay miss continuities and limits on invention with-out a recognitionof the elements of more enduringcoordinates in the way Japanese conceptualize theircommunities and through these localities the waythey think of themselves, their history, and theirtradition.

NOTESAcknowledgments would like to thank the editor and twoanonymous eviewers or commentson an earlierdraft of thisarticle,and the trusteesof the "OtsukiPeaceScholarship" ndthe HarryS. Truman nstitutewho assistedme in carryingoutfieldworkduring 1981-1983and again duringthe summerof1988.

'In addition,as Bestor(1992) and Lebra (1992) under-score,this ideology s oftencontrasted o the ideologyof the oldmiddleclass, and thus figuresas a focusof contestation boutthe mainguidelines or living in contemporaryapan.2This ermresonatesbothwith the notionof "native-placemaking"and the urbanemphasison opennessand democracy:Machi-zukuri oliciesstem fromthe belief-widely heldby scholarsandofficials-that existingpatternsand insti-tutionsof neighborhoodife . . . are outmodedand inap-

propriaten contemporaryociety; he municipalgovern-ment therefore eels it muststepin and create ntsitutionsthat will fostera sense of community nd citizenshipap-propriateo a modern,democractic ociety(Bestor1992:29).3To give three examples, throughout he country"tradi-tional"festivities such as Bon Odori(Bestor 1992:31), mat-suri, or songcontests(Kurita 1983) are used by governmentsas a modelsfor a varietyof civic events."Inthis respect t may be important o keepin mind thatthe trend n the past few yearsof turning hingsJapanesentoa model to be emulatedby manyWesternershas madeus for-get the extentto whichthingsWesterncontinue o be a modelto be emulatedfor manyJapanesepeople.


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CONTESTED IDENTITIES 217

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Ben Ari Japanese Discourses of Place Making