Miyamoto-chō Research Home Page

 

Ted Bestor

Department of Anthropology

Harvard University

bestor@wjh.harvard.edu

Return to Bestor’s homepage

 

 

Miyamoto-chō (a pseudonym) is a small community in an ordinary middle-class section of Tokyo.  I began to do ethnographic research in Miyamoto-chō in 1979, examining patterns of daily life and social interactions.  My research focused on the interlocking structure of community institutions (such as chōkai (“neighborhood associations”), shōtenkai (“shopkeepers’ associations), local kōenkai (political support groups), the PTA, the volunteer fire department, and other groups).   I examined local community activities such as the annual matsuri (festival) for the local shrine, as well as the relationship between Miyamoto-chō and the local ward office (kuyakusho), which itself pursued somewhat different agendas for creating and maintaining community identity.  Through my fieldwork, I examined how a sense of local tradition was created, maintained, and elaborated (and often contested) in giving a grounding of “traditionalism” to a section of Tokyo that had, in fact, only become an urban neighborhood in the 1920s and 1930s.  

 

My principal research in Miyamoto-chō was conducted in 1979-81, with follow-up research in 1984 and 1986.  I lived again in the neighborhood with my family in 1989-90, and continue to visit the community regularly to keep in touch with many friends there.

 

I am currently planning research (probably in 2005-06), which will examine how residents of the community have weathered the long recession since the 1990s, and how this and other social and cultural changes in Tokyo have affected people’s sense of participation in a viable community. 

 

Miyamoto-chō has been the subject of one book, Neighborhood Tokyo, and an ethnographic video with the same title, as well as many articles and chapters I have written about the life of the community.  Links to the book, the video, other publications, and photo gallery about Miyamoto-chō are listed below.

 

 

Neighborhood Tokyo – the book

 

Neighborhood Tokyo – the video

 

Complete list of publications about Miyamoto-chō – not yet posted

 

Miyamoto-chō photo gallery – not yet posted