Annual No.23 (2010)

特集：場所なき者たちの領域
「持たざる者の運動の〈予示的政治〉としての公共空間の占拠」稲葉奈々子
「居住福祉の実現を目指したまちづくりの課題　社会的排除から居住福祉へ」岡本祥浩
「朝鮮戦争と日本　〈ロームシャ〉の立場から視た」松沢哲成
「上野英信『眉屋私記』を読む　沖縄移民から見る近代」濱村篤
「『ネットカフェ難民』の存在は社会的に何を意味するか」大倉祐二

現場から
「変化する寿町　自立支援・野宿者支援の現場から」金子瑞紀
「わたしの前にある鍋と自由と燃える火と　京都精華大学における雇い止め反対活動と大学非正規労働者の『未来』」山家悠平

ヨセバ・クリティーク
「八紘一宇の国是で日本はユダヤ人難民を救えたのか？　上杉千年『ユダヤ人難民を助けた日本と日本人』を読む」金子マーティン
「カルチュラルスタディーズの陳腐な語り　小熊英二『1968』(上)(下)を読む」柴田勝紀
「社会学的な知見やアイデアの光る著作　武田尚子・文貞實『温泉リゾート・スタディーズ　箱根・熱海の癒し空間とサービスワーク』を読む」山口恵子

学会日録　2009.5～2010.4
編集後記

Table of Contents Yoseba Annual 23

* Photo essay
Tom GILL: 'Dome Village: Disappearance of a homeless utopia in the woods.'

* Special feature: A Place for People with no Place
INABA Nanako, 'Occupation of public space seen as the pre-figurative politics of the dispossessed.'
OKAMOTO Yoshihiro, 'Issues in town planning aimed at the realization of housing welfare; from social exclusion to housing welfare.'
MATSUZAWA Tessei, 'The Korean War and Japan, as seen from a laborer's perspective.'
HAMAMURA Atsushi, 'A reading of Hidenobu Ueno's Mayuya Shiki (The Private Note of the Family of Mayuya): Modernity as seen by Okinawan migrants
OKURA Yuji, 'What is the social significance of "Net Cafe Refugees"?'

* Notes from the frontline
KANEKO Mizuki, 'The changing face of Kotobuki-cho: a field report on support for fostering independence among homeless people.'
YANBE Yuhei, "The cooking pot, freedom and the burning fire in front of me: The movement against lay-offs at Kyoto Seika University and the future of irregular workers."

* Yoseba Critique
Martin KANEKO, 'Was Japan able to save Jewish refugees under the Hakko Ichiu policy of global domination? A reading of Uesugi Chitose's Yudayajin Nanmin o Tasuketa Nihon to Nihonjin (Japan and Japanese people who helped Jewish refugees).
SHIBATA Katsunori, 'A testimony to the worn-out state of cultural studies: Oguma Eiji's 1968 (2 volumes).'
YAMAGUCHI Keiko, 'A work that sparkles with sociological insights and ideas: a reading of Takeda Naoko and Moon Jeong sil's Onsen Rizoto Stadizu:Hakone/Atami no iyashi no kukan to sabisu waku (Hotspring resort studies: The healing space of Hakone and Atami and service sector work).

Abstracts

INABA Nanako, 'Occupation of public space seen as the pre-figurative politics of the dispossessed.'

The 'movement of the dispossessed' that emerged in France and Japan during the mid-1990s, led by homeless people, has developed since 2000 to form one facet of the burgeoning movement against globalization. One point in common between the movements in the two countries is that their repertoire of activism includes the occupation of public space. In the post Cold War era following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the disappearance of absolute truth as the principle underpinning modern knowledge was felt not only in academia but also in the theater of social activism. In this post-modern condition, the ideology of activism can no longer be backed by belief in a truth that will one day be attained. Consequently action in itself has emerged as "pre-figurative politics" or the means to realizing a "different world."

OKAMOTO Yoshihiro 'Issues in town planning aimed at the realization of housing welfare: from social exclusion to housing welfare.'

This paper seeks to outline challenges for progressive town planning that seeks to stamp out the structures of social exclusion in Japan, particularly in the realm of living space, and thereby achieve a state of "housing welfare" in which everybody is able to live in suitable housing. Social exclusion is analyzed in terms of home dweller's social affiliation, home dweller's economic activity, dwelling space's social affiliation, and means of transport and communication. Hitherto we have seen efforts to wipe out social exclusion in each of these aspects, and yet social exclusion has actually deepened and housing welfare has not been achieved. It is argued that in order truly to eradicate exclusion and achieve housing welfare, we have to aim at constructing "livelihood capital" which comprehensively addresses all the structures and conditions supporting people's livelihood.

MATSUZAWA Tessei, 'The Korean War and Japan, as seen from a laborer's perspective.'

This paper is part of an ongoing project to comprehensively analyze the Korean War and Japan's involvement in it from the perspective of the manual laboring class. As a first step, this paper focuses on the specifically military aspect of Japan's involvement in the Korean War, specifically: (1) mine-sweeping operations by former members of the Japanese Imperial Navy in the seas around the Korean peninsula; (2) the situation of general and dock labor under the occupying US army; and (3) the role of private companies that undertook the transportation of military personnel and the loading and unloading of weapons, explosives etc. Future installments will look at the role of local government authorities, railways and telecommunications (both in the public sector in those days) and the Japan Red Cross; and of major private-sector corporations like Nippon Express, Toyota, Nissan and the general contractors that grew so prodigiously on the back of Okinawan base contracts for the US military.

HAMAMURA Atsushi, 'A reading of Hidenobu Ueno's Mayuya Shiki: Modernity as seen by Okinawan migrants

Ueno Hidenobu/Eishin was himself a coal miner, and this literary classic vividly describes the struggles of miners from the Chikuho region of Kyushu, thrown out of work by the arbitrary switch in energy policy that resulted in the closure of the Chikuho mines and then flung out of Japan altogether as they were forced to migrate to South America and labor on the land there. This paper faithfully follows Ueno's text and thereby poses deep if distant questions about modernity in Japan. Rather than attempting a logical explanation, this paper seeks to question Japan's western-derived modernity in a literary, suggestive style, all the way from the abyss.

Okura Yuji, 'What is the social significance of "Net Cafe Refugees"?'

This paper looks at changing patterns of homelessness in Japan. After Japan became an affluent consumer society during the high-growth years, the zone of exclusion was restricted to the yoseba day-laboring districts that were sited outside the affluent society. However, looking at the survey data on "net cafe refugees" (people who use internet cafes as ad hoc dwelling places) it is clear that a new class of homeless people has emerged. They are much younger than yoseba workers and they are conceptually within the affluent society, so that they do not have the powerful oppositional culture and lifestyle of homeless yoseba workers - a fact that renders them almost invisible. If net cafe refugees are to avoid being sucked into existing society, we need to see the oppositional culture of the yoseba re-emerge as an expression of an independent sociopolitical position.

YANBE Yuhei, "The cooking pot, freedom and the burning fire in front of me: The movement against lay-offs at Kyoto Seika University and the future of irregular workers."

Japanese higher education is seeing a steady increase in short-term employment, with adjunct lecturers being hired on three- or five-year contracts. This style of employment with built-in dismissal imposes on workers a permanent state of anxiety regarding the future, while impoverishing higher education by sending people away from the university as soon as they have mastered their job. Now, following the action of "Union Ecstasy" which set up a tent in front of the clock tower at Kyoto University to protest fixed-term contracts for adjunct staff, adjuncts at Kyoto Seika, another of Kyoto's universities, have launched a small union called "SocoSoco." The name roughly means "just a little" in Japanese, and this is a modest movement, calling for the end of three-year contracts at Seika's Japanese Literacy Education program. Adjuncts are often ignored on campus, so these ones have come out of the shadows and built a small hut in front of the dining hall, where they hand out soup and appeal for support (the "lunchtime strike"). The author introduces this alternative union activity from the standpoint of a participant.