Vol.60 No.4 (2008)
Contents
Articles
The Practices of Artists and Control by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government in the Heaven Artist Program
YAMAGUCHI Susumu (1)
Local Governmentﾕs Outsourcing of Administrative Services and Emerging Entrepreneurship by Housewives: A case study of Minami-Osawa district in Tama New Town, Tokyo.
KIMURA Orie (23)
Research Notes
Changes in Melbourne Due to the Rapid Increase in International Students
TSUTSUMI Jun and Kevin OCONNO’R (45)
After-school Care in Kawasaki City after the Period of High Economic Growth
KUKIMOTO Mikoto (63)
Meeting Reports (79)
263rd Regular Meeting (81)
264th Regular Meeting (82)
26th Meeting of Metropolitan Area Studies (86)
93rd Meeting of Geographical Thought (92)
11st Meeting of Geographical Education (93)
Announcement (96)
Annual Meeting 2008 Program (98)
Abstracts
The Practices of Artists and Control by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government in the Heaven Artist Program
YAMAGUCHI Susumu
(Faculty of Economics, Shinshu University)
In this study, I clarify the conflict between the practices of artists who are active on the urban streets and the control by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government in the Heaven Artist Program. Specifically, I attempt to show a part of the control in the urban space by empirically describing the awareness and reactions of artists with regard to this control by the government. I will address the “Heaven Artist Program,” which is the street artist license system and part of the cultural policy of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, to explain the relationship between the practices of artists and the control by the government in the Heaven Artist Program. The method of the study involves analyzing narratives from interviews of Heaven Artists and the staff of the Heaven Artist office in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. In the following text, I present the findings that emerged in this study.
First, with regard to the control of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, recruitment and auditions of Heaven Artists are held every year. I understand the need for artists obtaining a license, because they are constantly applying for them. However, Heaven Artists who have obtained a license are subject to various rules. The places at which a large number of Heaven Artists are active are the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum and Ueno Park. However, for 60% of all the activity facilities and sites, the usage rate is less than 10%. The field manager exercises strict control, based on rules, over the activities of the Heaven Artists.
Moreover, the practices of Heaven Artists in the light of such control results in the artists interpreting the rules broadly and escaping the control of the government while pretending to obey it. This behavior of Heaven Artists depends on their dissatisfaction with regard to the strict rules and control of the Heaven Artist office. However, although Heaven Artists have voiced such dissatisfaction, they have not jointly demanded program improvements from the Heaven Artist office. This is because Heaven Artists utilize not only this program but also other activity opportunities. Thus, Heaven Artists not only choose this program but also use other activity opportunities to a large extent. In the case of this choice, income becomes an important factor. As artists, income from creating art is their bread and butter and a direct evaluation of their talents. Furthermore, they revalidate themselves as artists by the amount that they earn. Heaven Artists take advantage of other activity opportunities in addition to this program. Further, they frequent spaces controlled by the Heaven Artist office while evading the regulation of this program.
Key words: artists’ practices, control, street, narratives, Heaven Artist Program, Tokyo Metropolitan Government
Local Government’s Outsourcing of Administrative Services and Emerging Entrepreneurship by Housewives: A case study of Minami-Osawa district in Tama New Town, Tokyo.
KIMURA Orie
(Graduate Student, Ochanomizu University)
This paper highlights emerging women’s entrepreneurship as a new agency in restructuring a suburban community in Tokyo. It will also examine how housewives have cultivated their opportunities in business and expanded the potential of their lives. During the 1960s, an era of high economic growth, new residential estates were widely developed throughout the major suburbs in Japan. The urban spatial structure in Tokyo has incorporated a clear gender role division, where men engage in wage employment at the city center while women engage in housework and child care in the suburbs. The Japanese type of social and spatial division of labor has been supported by the unpaid housework of women.
Presently as globalizing capitalism advances and workforces are restructured in Japan, the modern nuclear family model of men as “breadwinners” supported by housewives has been disrupted. Also, under pressure to cut municipal expenses, municipalities are commissioning and encouraging residents’ groups to supply public services. New types of organizations like non-profit organizations (NPOs) have emerged, and some actively engage in “partnership systems” doing outsourced work for the municipality. The number of such organizations participating in this system has increased every year and also the types of partnerships entrusted by Hachioji City to these groups have diversified. Partnership activities include planning and managing community events such as summer festivals, the maintenance of green tracts of land, delivering meals to elderly persons living alone, and support for working mothers. Many users have come to rely on the services of community-based NPOs.
It is noteworthy that in this sort of outsourcing, new forms of entrepreneurship are being promoted by women who are utilizing their experience as housewives, such as housework and childcare, and their intimate network with their neighbors in the local community. The author focuses on one of these organization called S that was established by housewives, and analyzed their work through participatory observation. These women are utilizing their experience and knowledge in business, which they have cultivated in their community. Services and programs designed through the imagination and original ideas of housewives surpass even the common conceptual frame of public service. They offer: 1) consultation services with regard to local residents’ everyday needs, 2) intermediate businesses run for the local neighborhood and the municipality, such as supporting community festivals, and 3) facilitation of social relations for newly opened condominiums’ residents by disseminating information on the new neighborhood or holding parties for promoting mutual friendship, which S calls “community support”. Although the first two types of business do not provide much benefit to S, they have provided S with a favorable reputation that bolsters its potential. As municipalities or other companies outsource more work, there will be greater business opportunities for such small community businesses. Their partnership has raised their skill levels and inspired more trust in the local network, thus ultimately bolstering their popularity in the area.
In spite of having careers that required a high level of education, the women of S’s staff left their previous jobs at the time of their marriage or childbearing. However, they retained a strong desire to return to work, and looked for suitable jobs until they finally found a position in S. S’s women have in common expectations to contribute not only to their household income but also to their community. It is a great step forward for them to engage in paid jobs with a public purpose. These engagements empower them to alter their family gender roles and to promote a sense of self-confidence. Such a sense might not be fully achieved if they had remained as part-time workers at private companies or as unpaid volunteers for the community. Their work has steadily modified women’s life styles and gender norms in this suburban area.
As mentioned above, women’s entrepreneurial projects have often been developed jointly with municipal governments. The introduction of a partnership system and outsourcing have allowed female workers at groups like S to gain some, though not great, earnings and social esteem. However, the serious problem remains that such women have basically provided such services on almost a volunteer basis with lower wages. They have not yet been granted a wage level that matches their work. Amid the current concern over falling birthrates and the aging population, municipalities are trying to cut more expenditures, and this downsizing in the suburbs has bolstered these women’s businesses. It should be noted here that one motivation (possibly unconscious) for mobilizing the women might be to support the financial cuts of the municipality.
Key words: housewives, entrepreneurship, outsourcing, gender, suburb, Tama New Town
Changes in Melbourne Due to the Rapid Increase in International Students
TSUTSUMI Jun
(Department of Humanities, Faculty of Law and Letters, Ehime University)
Kevin OCONNO’R
(Faculty of Architecture, Building, and Planning, University of Melbourne)
This paper uses an understanding of the number and location of international students to provide a new conceptual understanding of the way that a form of globalization can change the inner city of a metropolitan area. It does so through a case study in the municipality of Melbourne, in a small area at the core of the metropolitan region made up of the CBD and a surrounding area with mixed residential and commercial functions. Located within this area are two very large universities with the second and third largest number of international students in Melbourne.
The important element that shaped demand for housing in the City of Melbourne emerged from an initiative in national education policy. International students have had a small role in Australian tertiary education over a long period of time. That generally involved graduate students assisted by the Australian Federal Government. In the middle 1980s, however, new perspectives on policy were developed that would change both the scale and character of the international students within Australia in a most dramatic way, shifting the focus from graduate to undergraduate, from scholarship to fee-paying.
The importance of students in changes in the inner city of Melbourne can be seen in their contribution to population and employment growth, their impact on population structure and their contribution to the rental market which has underpinned substantial new residential construction. This illustrates that inner city change can be triggered by global connections, but that the connection and the change might be different from that suggested in current thinking on global city development.
Key words: International students, high-rise apartments, university, urban redevelopment, employment, Melbourne
After-school Care in Kawasaki City after the Period of High Economic Growth
KUKIMOTO Mikoto
(JSPS Research Fellow, Graduate Student, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo)
In Japan in recent years, more mothers have begun to work outside the home, and thus the safety of children in the hours after school has become more important, and the need for after-school care has grown. Despite this, there are as yet only a small number of studies that examine after-school care. In Japan, until 1998, after-school care measures were established by each local government because such care was outside the Child Welfare Law, which was enacted in 1946 to cover baby and toddler nursery programs. Therefore, the process of development of after-school care in Japan is closely related to local context. This paper attempts to clarify the relationship between the change of supply and use of after-school care services and the local context, based on a case study of Kawasaki City after the period of high economic growth, from 1963 to 2002.
Publicly supported after-school care began in large cities such as Tokyo and Osaka in the early 1960s. Even now, in the metropolitan areas of large cities, the ratio of after-school care centers to that of primary school is higher than in other areas.
In the 1960s, Kawasaki City, a major city in the Keihin industrial area, attracted a large number of rural migrants, resulting in an increase in the number of latchkey children and young people who were considered at risk of delinquency. In response, in 1963, the Kawasaki City administration introduced after-school care measures that aimed to prevent delinquency in latchkey children. After-school care centers were built in coastal areas where there were many factories, and most of the users were low-income, full-time, blue-collar workers.
In the 1970s and 1980s, industry in Kawasaki City declined and the upcountry area was turned over to housing development. Additionally, more housewives began to work or participate in activities outside the home. Therefore, as many white-collar families came into the upcountry area, they became significant users of after-school care. Because of the increasing number of working mothers, the need for after-school care rose sharply. While the Kawasaki City administration built more centers, this did not meet the increase in need. As a result, after-school care centers managed by parent groups were established. The many events managed by parents in these centers eased communication among parents, who had to help each other economically in order to leave their children in after-school care to allow them to continue working. However, it is difficult for blue-collar mothers in industrial areas to participate in these events.
The need for after-school care continued to increase during the 1990s because more and more mothers were working outside the home. However, it was difficult for the Kawasaki City administration to expand the number of centers, because after-school care had progressed to the point where the program was so expansive, and therefore expensive, that it was considered to be a burden on public finances. A new program for all children but with fewer events was introduced, and the old after-school care measures were eliminated.
In conclusion, in Kawasaki City, after-school care was changed through the housing developments of the 1970s and 1980s, supported by the numbers of part-time working housewives that flowed into Kawasaki City. As a consequence, provision of after-school care became expensive, leading to institutional transformation.
Key words: childcare services, after-school care, coastal areas, inland areas, Kawasaki City
2011/10/01
