Paper short abstract:

This paper explores melancholia as an affect in aging neighbourhoods, focusing on two shopping arcades in different parts of the city of Osaka. One appears to be slowly declining, the shops awaiting abandonment. In the other, artists move in and inhabit the melancholic space.

Paper long abstract:

In an aging society many people are affected by age, both directly and indirectly. This paper explores melancholia as an affect in aging neighbourhoods of Osaka, focusing on two shopping arcades (shōtengai) in different parts of the city. In one, the shops are known to be under threat of becoming vacant or abandoned as their proprietors age. The old times of hustle and bustle remain a vivid if melancholic memory. New shops are sometimes opened in place of older ones, often very nice and happily used by the neighbours, and yet a sense of melancholia is palpable even when they say: they cleaned it up, they made it nice (kirei ni natta). In the other arcade, the vacant spaces are being taken over by artists, in a move which does not aim simply to enliven the neighbourhood. If melancholic spaces attract the artists, they do not merely seek to transform the space, but to inhabit it. Their often very modest and discreet interventions seem not to be an attempt at recreating the vibrancy and countering the melancholy, but rather to carve out a space for dwelling within it, for quietly growing among the olive greens, light browns and darkened yellows of the aesthetic of the bygone boom years.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the lives of street musicians looking for a career in Koenji in central Tokyo. In particular I discuss how these individuals reinterpret their dreams after moving to the capital city, as the odds of success become increasingly stacked against them.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the ways precariousness is experienced by those who migrate to the larger cities in Japan in search of "their dream". My fieldwork focuses on street musicians who perform at Koenji Station in central Tokyo. Moving to Tokyo and going to Koenji is part of a larger aspiration to realise a self-determined life as a musician in a neighbourhood celebrated for its musical community. However, the daily realities of playing street music have forced many performers to reinterpret their dreams into a series of DIY methods for getting by and achieving the emotional satisfaction from public music-making that they envisioned before arriving in the city. Why is it so important to them to keep the dream alive, and at what cost?

Street musicians rely on the regular rhythms of Tokyo's railway system in order gain access to large numbers of people, which leaves them at the mercy of associated authorities with the power to permit or deny performances. While an understanding of the implicit rules of the street is essential in securing a regular gig, popularity often depends upon the ability of musicians to build affective bonds with strangers in fleeting moments, eliciting a form of social engagement that generates both fellowship and hostility. In addition, street musicians' lives are heavily dictated by the the seasons, with languid summers giving way to the winter blues. In the colder, quieter times of the year many performers experience loneliness on the streets, causing their desire to connect with others to become entangled with a personal sense of well-being.

My fieldwork illustrates how diversely insecurity is felt and coped with by a group coming to terms with the risks involved in their life and work choices. My informants' attitudes toward and engagement in the social environment of the neighbourhood raises questions about the meaning of belonging in modern large cities, adding to current literature on place-making and alternative forms of social participation in Japan, as well as offering a detailed ethnographic account of urban street life after dark.