Representations of Indigenous people as rooted and sedentary reinforce ideas of their presence in cities as strange and out of place. This is problematic. In a world where an increasing number if not majority of Indigenous people live in urban or metropolitan areas, cities are now critical sites of Indigenous negotiation, appropriation, marginalization, and emplacement. This paper opens up the analysis of urban Indigenous life from the perspective of place and its role in the articulation of urban Indigenous identities. It takes as a case study the situation of indigenous Ainu in and around Tokyo. The interrogation of place highlights how Ainu are socially active in the city and critiques the regionalization of Ainu affairs to northern Japan.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AppaduraiA, 1988, “Putting hierarchy in its place”Cultural Anthropology336–49.
2.
BlackhawkN, 1995, “I can carry on from here: The relocation of American Indians to Los Angeles”Wicazo Sa Review1116–30.
3.
CaseyE, 1993Getting Back into Place: Toward a Renewed Understanding of the Place-world (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN).
4.
CobbC R, 2005, “Archaeology and the ‘savage slot’: Displacement and emplacement in the premodern world”American Anthropologist107563–574.
5.
DarnellR, 2005, “Linguistic anthropology in Canada: Some personal reflections”Canadian Journal of Linguistics50151–172.
6.
DeChicchisJ, 1995, “The current state of the Ainu language”Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Education16103–124.
7.
EhrkampP, 2005, “Placing identities: Transnational practices and local attachments of Turkish immigrants in Germany”Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies31345–364.
8.
EscobarA, 2001, “Culture sits in places: Reflections on globalism and subaltern strategies of localization”Political Geography20139–174.
9.
EversoleR, 2005, “Migration and resource access: View from a Quechua Barrio”Migration Letters293–100.
10.
Fienup-RiordanA, 2000Hunting Tradition in a Changing World: Yup'ik Lives in Alaska Today (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ).
11.
FixicoD L, 2001, “Foreword”, in American Indians and the Urban Experience Eds LoboSPetersK (AltaMira Press, New York) pp ix–x.
12.
Fogel-ChanceN, 1993, “Living in both worlds: ‘modernity’ and ‘tradition’ among North Slope Iñupiaq women in Anchorage”Arctic Anthropology3094–108.
13.
GegeoD W, 2001, “Cultural rupture and indigeneity: The challenge of (re)visioning ‘place’ in the Pacific”Contemporary Pacific13491–507.
14.
GraburnNErtlJTierneyR K, 2007Multiculturalism in the New Japan: Crossing the Boundaries Within (Berghahn Books, New York).
15.
HarveyGThompsonC DJr (Eds), 2005Indigenous Diasporas and Dislocations (Ashgate, Burlington, VT).
16.
HedbergCKepsuK, 2008, “Identity in motion: The process of Finland–Swedish migration to Sweden”National Identities1095–118.
17.
HookG DSiddleR (Eds), 2003Japan and Okinawa: Structure and Subjectivity (Routledge Curzon, London).
18.
KawashimaS, 2004, “The right to effective participation and the Ainu people”International Journal on Minority and Group Rights1121–74.
19.
KishigamiN, 2006, “Inuit social networks in an urban setting”, in Critical Inuit Studies: An Anthology of Contemporary Arctic Ethnography Eds SternPStevensonL (University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE) pp 206–216.
20.
KrouseS A, 2001, “Traditional Iroquois socials: Maintaining identity in the city”American Indian Quarterly25400–408.
21.
LamphereL, 2007, “Migration, assimilation and the cultural construction of identity: Navajo perspectives”Ethnic and Racial Studies301132–1151.
22.
LeeR B, 2006, “Twenty-first century indigenism”Anthropological Theory6455–479.
23.
LewallenA E, 2006‘Hands that Never Rest’: Ainu Women, Cultural Revival, and Indigenous Politics in Japan PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
24.
LieJ, 2001Multiethnic Japan (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA).
25.
LoboSPetersK (Eds), 2001American Indians and the Urban Experience (AltaMira Press, New York).
26.
MasseyD, 1999, “Spaces of politics”, in Human Geography Today Eds MasseyDAllenJSarreP (Polity Press, Cambridge) pp 279–294.
27.
OgasawaraN, 1990Shōppai Kawa: Tokyō ni ikiru Ainutachi [Crossing the Salty River: The stories of Ainu in Tokyo] (Kabushikigaisha, Tokyo).
28.
Ohnuki-TierneyE, 1976, “Regional variation in Ainu culture”American Ethnologist3297–329.
29.
PortesAGuarnizoL ELandoltP, 1999, “The study of transnationalism: Pitfalls and promise of an emergent research field”Ethnic and Racial Studies22217–237.
30.
PritchardE T, 2002Native New Yorkers: The Legacy of the Algonquin People of New York (Council Oak Books, San Francisco, CA).
31.
ReranoKai (Ed.), 1997Rera Cise e no Michi: Koushite Tokyo ni Ainu Ryōriten ga Dekita [The road towards the Rera Cise: The making of an Ainu restaurant in Tokyo] (Gendai Kikakushitsu, Tokyo).
32.
RosaldoR, 1993Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis (Beacon Press, Boston, MA).
33.
RyangS, 2000Koreans in Japan: Critical Voices from the Margin (Routledge, London).
34.
ShellerMUrryJ, 2006, “The new mobilities paradigm”Environment and Planning A38207–226.
35.
SiddleR, 1996Race, Resistance and the Ainu of Japan (Routledge, London).
36.
SissonsJ, 2005First Peoples: Indigenous Cultures and their Futures (Reaktion, London).
37.
SmithB R, 2006, “‘More than love’: Locality and affects of indigeneity in Northern Queensland”Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology7221–235.
38.
SparkC, 1999, “Home on ‘The Block’: Rethinking aboriginal emplacement”Journal of Australian Studies6356–63.
39.
ToddR, 2000/2001, “Between the land and the city: Aboriginal agency, culture and governance in urban areas”The London Journal of Canadian Studies1648–66.
40.
ChōsabuTokyo-To Kikaku Chōseikyoku, 1975Tokyo Zaijyū Utari Jittai Chōsa Hōkokusho [Report on the survey of the socioeconomic conditions of Ainu resident in Tokyo] Tokyo-to Kikaku Chōseikyoku Chōsabu, Tokyo.
41.
KikakuTokyo-To Shingitsu, 1988Tokyo Zaijyū Utari Jittai Choōsa Hōkokusho [Report on the survey of the socioeconomic conditions of Ainu resident in Tokyo], Tokyo-to Kikaku Shingitsu, Tokyo.
42.
TsudaT, 2003Strangers in the Ethnic Homeland: Japanese Brazilian Return Migration in Transnational Perspective (Columbia University Press, New York).
43.
UmesaoTIshiiY, 1999, “Taminzoku no kyōzon ni mukete shisō no ōkina tenkan o” [Transforming thought: Towards multiethnic coexistence], in Nihonjin to Tabunkashugi [The Japanese and multiculturalism], Eds IshiiYYamauchiM (Yamagawa Shuppansha, Tokyo) pp 195–241.
44.
VasishthA, 1997, “A model minority’: The Chinese community in Japan”, in Japans Minorities: Illusion of Homogeneity Ed. WeinerM (Routledge, London) pp 109–139.
45.
WatsonM K, 2006Kantō Resident Ainu and the Urban Indigenous Experience PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta, Edmonton.
46.
WillisD BMurphy-ShigematsuS (Eds), 2007Transcultural Japan: At the Borderlands of Race, Gender and Identity (Routledge, London).
47.
WilsonKPetersE J, 2005, “‘You can make a place for it’: Remapping urban First Nations spaces of identity”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space23395–413.
