Das Japan-Zentrum der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München lädt Sie im Rahmen des Forschungskolloquiums im Wintersemester 2024/25 zu folgendem Gastvortrag herzlich ein:
Prof. James Farrer, Ph.D. (Sophia University)
12. Februar 2025: 12:00 – 14:00 Uhr (CET)
@https://www.nishiogiology.org
Tokyo hosts one of the densest and most complex agglomerations of small businesses of any city in the world, partly due to its legacy human-scale built environment organized around the commuter rail stations (Almazán 2022). This paper reports on long-term ethnographic research on the social lives of small eateries in Tokyo as places where a sense of community is created and sustained while social boundaries are also constructed. Neighborhood businesses have long been recognized as a mainstay of the social lives of urban communities. They support lively foot traffic that keeps “eyes on the street,” supporting public safety and a sense of social trust (Jacobs 1961). These small businesses were also spaces in which community boundaries were defined and maintained (Suttles 1968). At the same time, small businesses serve as “third places” in which people cultivate social ties, have casual fun, and engage in the life of the community in ways that are not possible in work and home settings (Oldenburg 1989). In Tokyo, small eating and drinking spots are spaces in which regulars create social networks that operate as a type of social capital sustaining the social infrastructure of the neighborhood (Farrer 2023). This research provides ethnographic evidence of these social processes of community formation in Tokyo’s small eateries.
Language: English
Almazán, Jorge, Studiolab. 2022. Emergent Tokyo: Designing the spontaneous city. Tokyo: Oro Editions.
Farrer, James. 2023. „Urban foodways and social sustainability: neighborhood restaurants as social infrastructure.“ Food, Culture & Society (2023): 1-17.
Jacobs, Jane. 1961. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House.
Oldenberg, Ray. 1989. The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts, and How They Get You Through the Day. New York: Paragon House.
Suttles, Gerald D. 1968. The social order of the slum: Ethnicity and territory in the inner city. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
James Farrer is professor of sociology and director of the graduate program in global studies at Sophia University, Tokyo. He is specializing in urban sociology in Tokyo and Shanghai, with publications on cuisine, nightlife, migrant communities, and urban sexual cultures. In his ongoing research he focuses on urban foodscapes and the transformation of urban social infrastructure, studying community life in Tokyo, documenting the place making activities of small business people, neighborhood social entrepreneurs, and migrant communities. In recent years he extensively researched neighborhood gastronomy’s resilience and innovation in response to COVID-19.
His recent publications include The Global Japanese Restaurant: Mobilities, Imaginaries and Politics (2023, with David L. Wank), which was awarded the 2024 ASFS Book Prize (Edited Volume Category) by the Association for the Study of Food and Society, International Migrants in China’s Global City: The New Shanghailanders (2019), and Globalization and Asian Cuisines: Transnational Networks and Contact Zones (2015). He has also published over 50 scholarly book chapters and articles, including award-winning papers, like Who Owns A Cuisine? The Grassroots Politics of Japanese Food in Europe (2021, with Chuanfei Wang. Best Paper Award for Asian Anthropology 2021). His research activities are also published in a bilingual Japanese-English blog called Nishiogiology that aims to be accessible both to scholars and community members.
Der Vortrag findet in Präsenz statt. Ort: Japan-Zentrum der LMU, Seminargebäude am Englischen Garten, Oettingenstr. 67, 80538 München, Raum 161. Eine vorherige Anmeldung ist nicht erforderlich.
This event is co-hosted with CRC 1369 „Cultures of Vigilance“.
