![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
Abstract
Paying attention to the history of urban governance in postwar Japan, this article discusses how decades of governmental neglect and social exclusion gave rise to alternative practices and technologies of care in marginalized enclaves. In Kotobuki, a former day laborers’ district (yoseba) in Yokohama, the single-room occupancies known as doya have become care facilities for the impoverished elderly and people with disabilities, who are being embraced into a nexus of care sustained by local supporters. Two different groups appear central to this process: local resident (zainichi) Koreans, and Japanese leftists. The case of Kotobuki exemplifies how the resilient search by these two groups for an alternative future has transformed an underclass enclave into a uniquely protective dwelling place for the marginalized.
Acknowledgement
I am grateful to editor Katsuo Nawa and the anonymous reviewers for their generous and thoughtful comments. Ideas for this article germinated from the exchanges at the 9th Annual IIAS-TU Delft Conference, “City and Society: The Care of the Self,” organized by Gregory Bracken. I also wish to thank Tom Gill and Junko Teruyama for their help and encouragement in improving this piece. Lastly, I deeply appreciate the generosity and understanding of all those who shared their stories and lives with me in Kotobuki.
Notes
1. Kotobuki has appeared in two ethnographies focusing on the early 1990s. Tom Gill’s ethnography provides a vivid account of day laborers’ lives and social organizations (Gill Citation2001), while Carolyn Stevens’s ethnography elegantly portrays the social relationships among volunteers, activists, and residents (Stevens Citation1997). Gill has also recently published a biography of a Kotobuki day laborer, Nishikawa Kimitsu, in Japanese and English (Gill Citation2013, Citation2015).
2. All names of informants are pseudonyms, unless they have published under their real names. For Koreans, I used either Korean or Japanese last names as pseudonyms, depending on how they introduced themselves to me. All Japanese names follow the order of last name, first name. Interviews and conversations were held in Japanese and/or Korean, depending on the preference of my informants.
3. Zainichi (lit. residing in Japan) Koreans typically refer to descendants of Koreans who emigrated or were forcibly relocated to Japan during the Japanese occupation of Korea (1910–1945).
4. As the main aim of this article is to discuss the spatial transformation of Kotobuki district, I intentionally focus on these two groups who have played a major role in changing doya into care facilities, instead of the day laborers, the homeless, or other doya residents and groups. I have used zainichi Koreans who had affiliations with North Korea as my informants, as they were more willing to talk to me than those affiliated with South Korea.
5. Prime Minister Ikeda Hayato’s Income Doubling Plan (shotoku baizō keikaku 1961–1970) was aimed at reducing the rural population by two-thirds in a decade in order to accelerate urbanization and economic growth. For more on the structural factors and policies that shaped the postwar yoseba districts see Matsuzawa Citation1988, 157–161.
6. Several groups were classed as outcasts (hinin/eta) in the status hierarchy designated by the Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1868). The hinin encompassed a range of social dropouts including penurious vagrants, itinerant entertainers, the physically disabled, and criminals among others, while the eta referred to hereditary groups who specialized in tasks deemed symbolically polluting such as slaughtering, leather-making, and executions (Groemer Citation2001). The descendants of hinin/eta and people whose residence and occupation are associated with them are known today as burakumin.
7. Tom Gill has contrasted Japan’s approach to the “dispersal policy” employed in the United States (Gill Citation2001, 185). According to Gill, the American approach was based on “a cancerous growth metaphor, seeking to break up the skid row and disperse its inhabitants, seeing the threat to society lessened when spread more thinly.”
8. Although it is hard to find official health statistics for yoseba districts, memoirs and reports written by doctors, public health practitioners, and activists give us a glimpse of the patterns of disease and mortality shared by these districts over the past decades (Fujii Citation1990; Honda Citation1966; Koyanagi Citation1990; Saeki Citation1982; Takayanagi Citation1987; Watanabe Citation1977).
9. For more on the history of Kotobuki, see Gill (Citation2001, 47–49) and Stevens (Citation1997, 22–50).
10. For instance, see Kantō daishinsai ni okeru Chōsenjin gyakusatsu no jijitsu o kyūmei suru Yokohama no kai Citation2016; Yamamoto Citation2014.
11. Interview with Park on 7 June 2011 and with Choi on 17 June 2011.
12. For an overview of the New Left movements in Japan, see Ando Citation2014.
13. Even in post-“3/11” Japan, where massive anti-nuclear protests have reappeared in public space, the emphasis on the “ordinariness” (futsū) of these protests by the mass media and the participants reveals the lingering stigma attached to dedicated activism (Slater et al. Citation2015, 12).
14. Matsuzawa Tessei (Citation1988, 160–163) provides a succinct overview of the power struggles waged by yoseba laborers and activists from the first San’ya riots in 1959 to the activities of the National Council of Day Laborers’ Union in the 1980s.
15. The beginning of the occupation is well recorded in the documentary made by Ogawa Productions, “Yo-ho! Men’s Ballad: Kotobuki, the Free Laborers’ Town” (Dokkoi Ningenbushi: Kotobuki, jiyū rōdōsha no machi) (1975). The screening of the film in Kotobuki itself became part of the occupation movement, bringing in more laborers and sympathizers to support the Kotobuki Day Laborers’ Union.
16. See Aoki (Citation1984) for a more detailed account of the incidents. Kitamura (Citation1997) offers a comprehensive report on the attacks against the homeless by children and young adults that occurred across the nation over the past decades in Japan.
17. For the expansion of advocates in Kotobuki over the 1990s to 2000s, see Hayashi Citation2014, 190–197. Hayashi notes how some local activists endeavored to broaden the base of support for people in Kotobuki by allowing young people to take part in the movement without necessarily having to assume an activist (katsudōka) identity.
18. It is still extremely difficult for people under the age of 65 or without illness to apply for public assistance, as the welfare offices customarily turn them away. Nevertheless, the strong advocacy of local activists in Kotobuki tends to preclude the welfare office from rejecting applicants without due cause.
19. According to the city’s 2015 statistics, of the total 6150 doya residents in Kotobuki, 88% were recipients of public assistance, and 68% were over 60 years of age (Yokohama-shi Kenkōfukushi-kyoku Kotobuki Chiku Taisaku Tantō Citation2016).
20. According to Tom Gill, a blueprint of Koreatown was drawn up by a Yokohama architect’s office, as commissioned by some doya owners in 1992 (Gill Citation1996, 477). The ambitious plan, part of which was also reported in a local newspaper in 1994, envisioned dividing the district into five zones, including a zone of a Korean-themed shopping mall (ibid. 477–481; ‘Kotobuki chiku o Korea taun ni’, Kanagawa shimbun, 10 October 1994). The zainichi Korean doya owners I talked to, who were mostly second and third generations, did not have good recollections of the plan.
21. For more on the “repatriation movement,” see Bell Citation2016
22. Conversation on 17 June 2011.
23. Conversation on 17 June 2011.
24. While the Japanese government had long pointed the finger at North Korea over the disappearance of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, North Korea had strongly denied the allegations and criticized Japan for false propaganda. However, in the summit meeting between the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and the Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro in September 2002, Kim admitted that North Korean secret agents had abducted 13 Japanese civilians. The revelation severely damaged the standing of pro-North Korea zainichi Koreans in Japan, and many renounced their affiliation thereafter. For more on the repercussions of the 2002 revelation for pro-North Korea zainichi Korean communities, see Ha Citation2017.
25. Conversation on 25 and 27 May 2012.
26. Conversation on 25 May 2012.
27. Interview on 15 November 2011.
28. The home-help system became affordable for households with senior citizens over 65 with the implementation in 2000 of long-term care insurance in Japan. While Kotobuki used to be avoided by home-help companies, their number has recently increased and as of 2014 there were six helper stations within and around the district.
29. Conversation on 14 September 2016.
30. Field notes from 21 August 2016.
31. Conversation on 1 July 2016.
32. For comparison, see Tom Gill’s biography of Nishikawa Kimitsu, which provides a detailed account of how a former day laborer spent his final years in Kotobuki (Gill Citation2015, 99–116). It should be noted that neither Suzuki nor Yoshida represents the whole spectrum of the current residents of Kotobuki, whose life trajectories widely vary.