文化・社会空間の生成・変容とシンボル化過程-リトル・トーキョーの観察から-

概要

論文の詳細を見る
本稿では,ロサンゼルズの日系エスニック商業・業務地区,リトルトーキョーの再開発過程を事例としつつ,文化・社会空間の生成と変容の過程におけるシンボル化過程の性質と役割を考察する.最初に三つの重要な概念的前提である集団(エスニシティ),空間(エスニック文化・社会空間),過程(シンボル化過程)について考察し,とくにRowntree and Conkey (1980)によって提示された「ストレスーシンボル化過程」の連続体モデルを検討した後,リトルトーキョーにおける戦後の変容過程,とくに都市再開発過程の進行とその性質を概観した.その結果,リトルトーキョーの再開発過程は,Rowntree and Conkey (1980)の連続体モデルに大筋において適合していることが判明したが,文化的・歴史的コンテキストの違いから初期相が短かったこと,後期相の途中においてシンボル化の方向性が転換し,新たなストレスーシンボル化のサイクルが再生産されたと解釈できることなど,モデルとの重要な相違も観察された.This paper is an inquiry into the nature and role of the symbolization process in the formation and changes of an ethnic sociocultural space in an urban area, exemplified by Little Tokyo, a Japanese-American community in Los Angeles, California.It is well accepted that symbolization, or the process through which symbols are created, elabo-rated, and modified, is one of the principal sociocultural processes. Rowntree and Conkey (1980) found that the symbolization process is usually promoted to alleviate sociocultural stress, and his-toric preservation may be viewed as a symbolizing response to stress. They examined the process of stress-induced symbolization (i.e., the stress-symbolization process) through a case study of the devel-opment of historic preservation in Salzburg, Austria, and they presented an ecological continuum model of symbolization described by the two extreme phases: the early phase and late phase. In the early phase of the model, the agents of symbolic action are socially marginal people and the symbols are diffuse and ambiguous. But by the late phase, the agents of symbolic action move to the center of the society, the symbols become condensed, widely accepted, and sometimes politically formal, and structural or institutional changes may emerge to maintain the symbolic system. On the whole, the early phase is characterized by high flexibility, low risk, and low expenditure of socioeconomic resources, and the later phase is characterized by low flexibility, high risk, and high resource expendi-ture.It should be noted that the stress that Rowntree and Conkey (1980) illustrated in their article has a principally spatial dimension, and the symbolizing action to the stress, i. e., historical preservation, is also highly spatial or territorial. To emphasize this spatial dimension of the phenomena, in this paper the term “spatial stress-symbolization process” is used to describe the model case of Little Tokyo.Little Tokyo had long been a typical Japanese (or Japanese-American) community in downtown Los Angeles. However, by the early 1960s, Little Tokyo was beginning to experience the decay of many old buildings and. a decline as a residential community, due to the moving of young Japanese-Americans to the suburbs. In addition to this, the city of Los Angeles, which had already demolished the northwest section of Little Tokyo to make way for the site of the Police Department in the 1950s, was planning to expand its administrative area toward the direction of Little Tokyo. Under these pres-sures, the Little Tokyo Redevelopment Project officially had its beginning in the early 1970s, after some efforts in the 1960s. By 1994, 28 projects had been completed, and eight other projects are now un-der planning or negotiation. The finished projects include housing, hotels, office space, retail commer-cial space, and religious, cultural, and community facilities. Although the project has not yet been com-pletely finished, the area of Little Tokyo has been drastically changed from a shabby, old, ethnic ghet-to into a newly renovated, modern, commercial and business quarter except for the East First Street North district.The main direct force which caused these dynamic changes in Little Tokyo was a powerful socioeco-nomic process in which big capital was continuously invested in a small, limited area. However, it should be noted that these changes also can be viewed at the same time as a series of spatial symboliz-ing responses to sociocultural stresses. The direct stress which brought about the redevelopment was the pressure of the expected expansion of the civic center of Los Angeles and . the consequent loss of a basic territory of the ethnic community. The indirect stress was the decaying conditions of the town's physical structures and the fear that Little Tokyo as an ethnic community was gradually declin-ing.
学術雑誌目次速報データベース由来の論文

文化・社会空間の生成・変容とシンボル化過程-リトル・トーキョーの観察から-

スポンサーリンク

概要

著者

関連論文

スポンサーリンク