Japanese Journal of Human Geography Vol.60 No.5 (2008)

Vol.60 No.5 (2008)

Contents

Articles

The Genroku Nihonzu (map of Japan) Compiled by the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Authenticity and Distribution of its Kiriutsushizu (copies of sections of the original map)
KAWAMURA Hirotada (1)

Reviews

Putting ‘Home’ in Geographical Contexts: A Review of Cultural Geography Studies
FUKUDA Tamami (23)
A Review of Geographical Studies on the Internet from the Viewpoint of Local Communication
WADA Takashi (43)

Research Notes

How Street Fashion is Shaped in Horie, a Commercially Regenerated Area
KAWAGUCHI Natsuki (63)

Meeting Reports (79)

27th Meeting of Metropolitan Area Studies (82)
110th Meeting of Historical Geography (88)
111st Meeting of Historical Geography (91)
12nd Meeting of Geographical Education (94)

Abstracts

The Genroku Nihonzu (map of Japan) Compiled by the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Authenticity and Distribution of Its Kiriutsushizu (copies of sections of the original map)

KAWAMURA Hirotada

It is generally well known that a copy of the Nihonsouzu (general map of Japan) made during the Genroku Era by the Shogunate is currently being kept in Meiji University’s Ashida Library. Additionally, 10 sets of kirizu (copies of sections) of the Genroku Nihonsouzu are known to currently exist. These are actually copies of smaller sections of the map, however this fact is not commonly known. These sets of kiriutsushizu are kept in various places such as Shizuoka Prefecture’s Kuno Library, Tokyo Metropolitan Library’s Kondo Memorial Maritime Affairs Library, the Oosa Library of Nagoya, the Nanki Library at the University of Tokyo, the Akioka Collection at the National Museum of Japanese History, and in the Sanada Houmotukan of Nagano City.
When these ten sets of kiriutsushizu are compared, they resemble each other in terms of the drawings, the figures, the reduced scale, the land routes, the sea routes and nautical distances. However, there are certain differences, such as the number of sheets used, and the descriptions of the places. It appears that no set is identical to the original map.
Mr. Takejiro Akioka once remarked that the Nihonsouzu housed in the Ashida Library was not a complete copy of the original Nihonsouzu which the Shogunate made, but instead was simply a copy of a copy that only featured some selected and essential parts of the actual map. However, this notion of Mr. Akioka’s was never discussed and the Genroku Nihonzu kept at the Ashida Library has always been introduced as an exact copy of the original Genroku Nihonsouzu compiled by the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Consequently, I sought to clarify whether the Nihonsouzu at the Ashida Library is an exact and complete copy of the original map of Japan that the Shogunate had made or a simple copy, as Mr. Akioka had contended. With that in mind, I compared each of the ten sets of kiriutsushizu with the Nihonsouzu housed in the Ashida Library.
As a result of the study, it was determined that the Ashida Library’s Nihonsouzu was an exact copy of the map of Japan made by the Shogunate and was not the simplified map which Mr. Akioka had claimed it to be. And after examining their contents, I was able to divide the ten sets of kiriutsushizu into two groups: A and B. Group A’s maps were exact copies of the Ashida Library’s map rendered by the Shogunate. Group B’s maps featured additional geographical depictions of mountains, rivers, and a temple and a shrine and the place names, and yet these maps had been deemed to be exact copies of the Shogunate’s original rendering.
Maps in Group A can be found in the Kuno Library, the Kondo Memorial Maritime Affairs Library, and the Oosa Library of Nagoya. Maps in Group B can be found in the Akioka Collection at the National Museum of Japanese History, the University of Tokyo’s Nanki Library, and the Sanada Houmotukan of Nagano City.

Key words: Genroku Nihonzu, kiriutsushizu, map of prefectural borders, coastal map, list of routes, milestones

Putting ‘Home’ in Geographical Contexts: A Review of CulturalGeography Studies

FUKUDA Tamami
(Osaka Prefecture University)

In the last decade, geographers, especially cultural geographers, have conducted a considerable number of studies on home and domestic space. The topic of home, which was considered to be familiar and banal and had been neglected in the discipline of geography, has now been given renewed focus from various perspectives. This paper aims to review the current studies of geographies of home by considering some theories in cultural geography. Subsequently, it aims to explore the possible ways of developing critical studies of geographies of home in Japanese contemporary society.
The trend toward geographies of home is examined from the following three viewpoints: The first is in moving beyond the separation of public and private spheres. Although humanistic geographers emphasized emotions and subjective meanings in their anthropocentric thought, feminist geographers have made great contributions towards conquering dualistic thinking. They have considered the idea of home as political, ambiguous, fluid, and multiscale. The second viewpoint is the oscillating consideration between mobility and stability, which stems from postcolonial studies. This involves focusing on the politics of belonging and alienation, that is, roots and routes, spatial politics and gendered geographies, and collective memory and its materialization. The third viewpoint is non―representational theory in the discipline. This theory includes a variety of ideas―materiality, performativity, post―human, affect, hybridity, etc. It can be said that parts of current research are going beyond the interpretation of representation and focusing on the ‘here and now.’ From the viewpoint of geographies of home, materiality and perfomativity are rather important for both theoretical development and social practice.
How are the recent studies on geographies of home influencing Japanese academia? It is very important to directly face the current conditions of Japanese homes. These conditions in Japanese society can be considered as a ‘cult of domesticity.’ Home plays a critical role both in policymaking and in space consumption. The fixed idea of home is definitely not adequate in deepening our consideration of home and geography. At present, it is important for us to develop critical thinking of home at the points of intersection between the material and immaterial, public and private, and mobility and stability.

Key words: home, cultural geography, feminist geography, materiality, performativity, domestic space

A Review of Geographical Studies on the Internet from the Viewpoint of Local Communication

WADA Takashi
(Faculty of Economics, Tokuyama University)
(Graduate Student, Hiroshima University)

Geographical studies on information arose from contact analysis and studies of urban systems that measured the frequency of (electronic) communications. Studies of media and local communications followed, after which information was determined to be the driving force in society. Subsequently, the ‘geography of information’ was proposed by some experts, and this newly proposed sub―discipline was divided into two fields: one was the geography of the information society, and the other was the geography of cyberspace. When the geography of cyberspace was first analyzed, cyberspace was deemed to be a kind of Utopia in which information and communication technology could solve almost all social problems, and a borderless society was thought to be the inevitable outcome. But many experts have demonstrated geographical difference in cyberspace through their studies of computer networks, information flow, and social networks. In addition, some geographers argue that we should see cyberspace and real space syncretically as a ‘geocyberspace’.
This article discusses four fields of geographical study of the Internet and suggests four viewpoints and three means of analysis. The four fields are cyberspace, urban space, industrial space, and social networks, which are categorized by two axes: topology vs. activity, and hierarchical vs. horizontal. The four viewpoints are categorized by two axes: global vs. local and real vs. virtual. ‘Geocyberspace’ is spread over the four viewpoints. Finally, the three means of analysis are network analysis, qualitative analysis of the texts which can be read on the Internet, and ethnography.

How Street Fashion is Shaped in Horie, a Commercially Regenerated Area

KAWAGUCHI Natsuki
(Graguate Student, Graduate School of Literature and Human Sciences, Osaka City University)

The main purpose of this paper is to provide a case study of street fashion in Horie with special focus on the interrelationship between spatial regeneration and urban culture which young people produce.
First, I examine the varieties of shops observed in Horie in 1964, 1997, and 2003 and trace the changes in land use during the period. Second, I present and analyze the data which came from an interview I carried out with the editor of Cazi Cazi, a local fashion magazine in the Kansai. Third, I examine the interview data which young passersby in Horie provided. The informants consist of 14 young people.
The main points of the paper are:
(1) I have discussed the change of land use in Horie using Figs. 2 to 4 and concluded that Horie spatially transformed itself to a new fashionable area, especially between 1997 and 2003.
(2) Based on the interview with the editor of Cazi Cazi, I have implied that young people would not like to learn about the latest styles from ordinary fashion magazines but to learn directly from the real situation on the streets.
(3) I have reconstructed on the basis of the narratives collected from young people in Horie how young people dress themselves and how fashion is produced and reproduced there. Young people observe carefully others’ appearances and evaluate or criticize them accordingly. If others’ fashions are judged to be ‘cool’ enough for them, they are imitated, causing a slight adjustment of the current fashion. In a similar way, young people sample styles in magazines and tailor them to match themselves.
(4) Young people improve their fashion by combining clothes and accessories in a unique way, thus suggesting alternative styles of fashion for others in Horie. These practitioners form and renew the street fashion in Horie in a dynamic manner.
(5) Street fashion gives a unique character to Horie, which demands that youths dress more smartly than others. It makes Horie different from other major shopping districts.

Key words: street fashion, commercial space, print media, narrative analysis, Horie

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