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- Convenor:
-
Yasumasa Sekine
(Kwansei Gakuin University)
- Location:
- 102a
- Start time:
- 16 May, 2014 at
Time zone: Asia/Tokyo
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
Our major aim in this panel is to explore "street phenomena" observed both in the underclass and defeated localities, and to provide ethnographic knowledge with which street-wisdom gets evolved as a resource of tactics for facilitating a survival in the contemporary world.
Long Abstract:
The spread of global capitalism associated with neoliberalism has seen the rise of "societies of control", that is, "dual societies" which show a huge gap between the dominant class society and the underclass one. The "underclass" people live barely on or nearby the street, a world of no guarantees, and are very ironically regarded as the avant-garde of the radically changing contemporary society. On the other hand, even those belonging to the mainstream of the home-oriented society are presently afraid of losing their stable position. So it may be noted that there may be a need for everyone to look for the street-wisdom accumulated by the bottom people living on or nearby the street. When we apply this schema to the understanding of locality in the present society, we could visualize the locality of activities and incidents in the marginalized regions, thereby indicating in a broader sense, 'street phenomena'. Since global cities as they grow unprecedentedly tend to exploit their hinterlands extensively, localities on their peripheries are forced to struggle to survive. Our major aim in this panel is to explore this "street phenomena" observed both in the underclass and defeated localities, and to provide ethnographic knowledge with which street-wisdom gets evolved as a resource of tactics for facilitating a survival in the contemporary world.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
.I define what Street Anthropology aims at and what kind of viewpoint it should adopt. On the basis of my fieldwork in India and in UK, I conclude that the essential idea of Street Anthropology would be "becoming-street edge" which encompasses the viewpoints of "generative" and "from below".
Paper long abstract:
Idea on 'Street Anthropology' got rooted when I got inspired that city is a confluence of various street flows (of things, persons, money and information). The current rapid globalization clarifies such a fluid nature of city and local-global getting engaged and entangled. Street Anthropology therefore first requires a change in viewpoint, from the fixed to "the generative". Since street consists of two spaces, center and edge which respectively reflect the dominant and the repressed, it must be the arena in which the viewpoints of top-down and bottom-up are on conflict. Street Anthropology has to certainly adopt "the viewpoint from below" for realizing "a true holistic approach". Street Anthropology as the case of the Subaltern Studies focuses upon the activities of the subaltern living on street edge. I carried out fieldworks in two locations: one on pavement shrines as a space of faith in Chennai, India, and other on Hindu temples built up by the 'British Asians' in London. I find Peirce's semiotics more pertinent for elucidating the process of bricolage of temple construction in the marginalized situations. The process appears to be a generative one of inference and advancing from icon to symbol through index. The exploration comes closer to the philosophical concept of "Becoming-minor" developed by Deleuze and Guattari. Thus, the essential idea of Street Anthropology would be "becoming-street edge" which encompasses the viewpoints of "generative"and "from below". It may contribute to getting rid of the fiction of modernity by which neo-liberalist ideology is justified.
Paper short abstract:
This paper focuses on Sri Lankan new popular movement of building Buddhist shrines on the roadside. Discussing backgrounds of the movement, it clarifies that the movement is a manifestation of people’s reaction to the fragmentation of their lives under the rapid socio-economic change.
Paper long abstract:
During the last decade, Sri Lankan rural and urban landscapes have distinctly changed because of newly built Buddhist shrines on the roadside. Those shrines (Budu Madura) are generally small in size and built by working with voluntary initiative of local residents. It is ascertained that the sites of enshrining Buddha's images have historically spread out: from temples to the inside of laymen's houses (around 1950s), and from houses to roadside (around 2000s). But why did people begin to build them on the roadside? My Recent research in Kandy city reveals two peculiar facts about the movement. One is that the movement rarely entails explicit individualistic motivations, such as this-worldly profit that strongly underpinned other outstanding religious movements in the 20th century, e.g. the Bo-tree worshipping. Rather, people find the significance of 'collectiveness' in the process of building them. The other is that the roadside Buddhas are rarely to be seen in the high-end residential areas where the residing people relatively lead independent lives. These facts indicate implicit correlation between exponential increase of the roadside Buddhas and socio-economic conditions of the contemporary Sri Lankan society. The fragmentation of life is now accelerating, and extending even to the living of ordinary people. Herein lies the significance of the movement, for those who find difficulty in moving up in the society, namely to re-connect social ties from below, against dominant neoliberalist ideology that causes the fragmentation. Roadside turns to be a site for symbolic resistance against socio-economic encroachment on people's collective lives.
Paper short abstract:
Based on fieldwork with ana botol (meaning “bottle kids”) in West Timor, Indonesia, this paper tries to bring a new perspective to research on the urban street by treating the street as a space where two economic systems, namely the gift economy and the commodity economy, interweave and alternate.
Paper long abstract:
Kupang is the largest city of West Timor, Indonesia. Atoni Meto, an ethnic group which makes up about half of the island's population, mainly reside in underdeveloped villages in the mountains east of Kupang. Since they have hardly any educational opportunities, they have no choice but to engage in low-wage and low-skilled occupations on the streets in Kupang. Among them is a group of men called ana botol (bottle kids), who work as waste collectors, recyclers and peddlers.
When an ana botol has made some money, he will go back to his village and spend the money there. The earnings they make on the street are all used to buy gifts for rituals such as weddings, funerals, and rebuilding tombs in their village. Then they return to Kupang and go back to their work on the street. Such generosity is considered proof of being a mature member of the village. Performing rituals in the village is an important motivation of their labor, and also the main goal of their lives on the urban street.
Based on fieldwork with ana botol, the paper tries to bring a new perspective to research on the urban street by treating the street as a space where two economic systems, namely the gift economy and the commodity economy, interweave and alternate. Ana botol make their life at the edge of the market economy, their lives connected to it but not completely included in it.
Paper short abstract:
The analysis of street phenomena in Paris shows how artistic engagement and the occupation of land through urban gardening create commonality. The local social movement managed to preserve the architecture of 19th century workers' homes, and achieved to transform private into public space.
Paper long abstract:
In the beginning, migration studies have focused on class issues, namely on working immigration in Western Europe. With the cultural turn in the social sciences in the 1990s, class issues were less emphasized, whereas religious, ethnic and cultural belongings have been overemphasised.
The analysis of street phenomena in the Parisian district of Belleville shows how artistic engagement and the use and occupation of land through urban gardening create commonality. A common heritage in terms of working class history is discursively mobilised in order to argue in favour of a conservation of the district's architecture. The anarchistic urban gardening movement which emerged later on has also led to a successful change in local politics so that the inhabitants were able to keep their shared piece of land. Hereby, the local social movement successfully managed to preserve the architecture of 19th century workers' homes, as well as to transform private into public space. This political victory, enhanced by artist's performances, can be interpreted as a response to global political issues (class; ecology) on a local scene. The present study contributes to the development of anthropology of the street by long-term ethnographic research that was particularly based on the observation of (semi-)public events. Events that were announced and/or took place on the street were used as entry points to the fields and as a main focus of the analysis. This approach gives constructive answers to the critiques of methodological nationalism and provides an innovative example for the location of migration.