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- Convenor:
-
Sonja Ganseforth
(German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ), Tokyo)
Send message to Convenor
- Chair:
-
Sonja Ganseforth
(German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ), Tokyo)
- Discussant:
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Kiyohiko Sakamoto
(Ryukoku University)
- Section:
- Urban, Regional and Environmental Studies
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 25 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels
Short Abstract:
With contributions on the enclosure of natural resources and aging rural communities, heterotopic urban welfare spaces, and emancipatory commoning projects in knowledge production, this panel asks how commons and heterotopic spaces are being challenged and reasserted in contemporary Japan.
Long Abstract:
As environmental and demographic crises are becoming increasingly evident around the globe and mature industrialized countries seem to enter a stage of post- or degrowth, resource spaces in different realms are undergoing profound transformations. With contributions on rural space and natural resources, urban space and welfare, and knowledge production, this panel asks how commons and heterotopic spaces are being challenged and reasserted in contemporary Japan.
Agriculture, forestry, and fisheries have long constituted vestiges of commons and collective resource management in post-war Japan, but demographic change, social and spatial mobility, and environmental degradation are putting into question the long-term sustainability of depopulating rural communities and production collectives such as fishery cooperatives or pastoralist communities. Neoliberal reforms are strengthening the entrance of private capital into these heterotopic sectors, driving their commodification and enclosure.
In urban contexts, public space is undergoing similar processes of enclosure and privatization through lucrative inner-city real estate developments, often leading to the displacement of lower-income households or homeless communities. Nevertheless, some sanctuaries accommodating marginalized social groups or deviant behavior persist in urban localities, constituting important repositories of social resources and informal welfare institutions. However, aging, economic recession, and rival claims to the use of public space are threatening these urban heterotopias.
With the digital transformation affecting most aspects of social and economic life, expert knowledge and control over information have become crucial arenas of contestation, especially in critical areas such as ecological risk, climate change, and public health. Knowledge is undergoing increasing enclosure through patenting and the enforcement of intellectual property rights as well as the monopolization of big data sets by private corporations or state institutions. However, open science projects, public libraries, and information repositories also make use of new technological possibilities to create new commons of knowledge.
Bringing together these different perspectives, the panel seeks to carve out similarities and variations in the pressures on heterotopic spaces, the drivers of enclosures, and their unequal outcomes. What are the implications of these processes for post-growth futures, and what role can researchers play in the creation of new emancipatory commoning projects?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 25 August, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
Demographic and ecological crises are challenging the viability of Japanese coastal fisheries, still famous for cooperative resource management. This paper analyzes how fishery reform and global discourses of sustainable growth are driving the enclosure of one of the last natural resource commons.
Paper long abstract:
In view of pressing concerns about overfishing, the degradation of marine environments, and climate change, the concept of sustainability is omnipresent in discussions of fishery reforms, but it remains highly contested. This paper analyzes how global discourses of sustainable growth and institutional reform in the Japanese fishing sector are driving the enclosure of one of the last vestiges of natural resource commons. An analysis of programmatic publications and promotion activities for "sustainable" ocean economies is complemented with findings from qualitative interviews and field research in small fishing communities in Kyushu. How are concepts of common resources, property, food security, and sustainability being renegotiated, and what are the implications of economic growth strategies in the face of ecological and demographic crisis?
Coastal fishing communities in Japan were often idealized as the last resorts of communal re-source administration in an industrialized country, since coastal fishing rights were largely controlled and administered collectively in territorial fishery cooperatives in a form of "sea tenure". However, demographic change is weakening the commons functions in aging communities, and declining profitability and resource stocks, shrinking numbers of fishers, and a lack of successors are challenging the future of small, close-knit cooperatives. Reform of the Japanese Fishery Law aiming for new growth in the sector now envisions the opening up of coastal fishery resources to corporate investors and the introduction of fishing quotas.
Harking back to dated theories of a supposed "tragedy of the commons" (Hardin/Gordon), this focus on private property regimes, market mechanisms, and presuppositions of economic and scientific rationality drives the commodification, financialization, and enclosure of this heterotopic commons - a process supported through well-funded agenda setting campaigns by charitable foundations, environmental trust funds, and NGOs, mostly from North America. Recent international "blue economy" programs also treat the oceans as one of the last natural frontiers for resource exploitation and are criticized as "ocean grabbing" in parallel to preceding global processes on agricultural lands. How are these discourses affecting the declining commons in Japanese coastal fisheries?
Paper short abstract:
This paper introduces Open Science approaches and stakeholders in Japan with a special focus on the Research Center for Open Science of the National Institute for Informatics in Tokyo and its activities for the creation of knowledge commons in the digital space.
Paper long abstract:
The digital transformation has profound effects on the way the economic sectors function, society is organized, and information is managed in contemporary Japan. Recent technological achievements open up new possibilities and freedoms in the digital space, but they are also accompanied by increasing processes of enclosures in the form of intellectual property rights and through the monopolization of a few information infrastructure technology providers. Private sector control even extends to vital areas such as patents on pharmaceuticals, seeds and genetic codes or the collection of sensitive information on consumers and users of digital applications.
On the other hand, new technological possibilities also strengthen counter-movements such as the "Open Science" movement and its quest for creating new commons of knowledge in the digital space by providing open access to academic publications, opening up, publicising and debating academic research with a broader community of scholars and citizen science experts alike.
This paper introduces Open Science approaches and stakeholders in Japan with a special focus on the Research Center for Open Science (RCOS) of the National Institute for Informatics (NII) in Tokyo and its activities to open up academic knowledge in Japan - from publications to research data, research software, research processes and citizen science projects.
By discussing examples from the fields of agriculture and cultural heritage it gives insights into the chances and challenges of digitization processes, research data management and open data community building. Furthermore, it asks about the responsibility of libraries and researchers for the creation of knowledge commons in the physical as well as the digital space.
Paper short abstract:
This paper uses document collection, interviews, and participatory observation to capture Tokyo's (former) day laborer quarter San'ya as a spatially confined enclave within the Japanese welfare state, and analyzes its ongoing transformation.
Paper long abstract:
While the fragmentation of Japan's postwar welfare state and the ongoing turn towards more general social security provision have often been acknowledged, the spatial dimension of welfare state fragmentation in Japan has received less attention. Based on document collection, interviews, and participatory observation, this paper captures Tokyo's (former) day laborer quarter San'ya as a spatially confined enclave within the Japanese welfare state, and analyzes its ongoing transformation. San'ya is a small area on both sides of the border between Arakawa Ward and Taitō Ward in Tokyo. In the postwar era, it became home to thousands of men who sought short-term work in Sanya's day labor market (yoseba) and lived in simple hostels (doya). Due to shrinking labor opportunities after the burst of the economic bubble and the aging of the workers, San'ya has gradually turned from a day laborer into a "welfare quarter" (fukushi-gai), accompanied by social problems such as alcoholism, mental illness, and homelessness. In 2019, about 3,800 (former) day laborers still lived in the 145 doya remaining in the area. More than 90% were social welfare recipients.
Until today, San'ya displays forms of public social security provision that are specific to the area. Moreover, it has long served as a sanctuary for people with nowhere else to go, offering a distinct local social infrastructure, a sense of belonging, and the freedom to meet, drink, or live in the streets. While most of the remaining (former) day laborers intend to stay in San'ya for the rest of their lives, various interrelated processes are challenging the heterotopic character of the area. Since the early 2000s, several (former) doya have opened up to international tourists, and housing development brought new residents to the area. State policies have supported both processes. The metropolitan government also tries to move doya residents into extra-local public housing facilities. Other private and public actors have (diverging) interests in retaining the welfare quarter. Yet, with the advent of new interest groups, middle-class values gain prominence, and deviant use of public space has come under scrutiny, thus undermining the area's sanctuary functions.