Russell, James Edward (2011) Cultural Property and Heritage in Japan. PhD Thesis, SOAS, University of London http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/14043 Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non‐commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", name of the School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination. Cultural Property and Heritage in Japan James Edward Russell Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD in September 2011 Department of Anthropology School of Oriental and African Studies University of London 1 Declaration for PhD thesis I have read and understood regulation 17.9 of the Regulations for students of the School of Oriental and African Studies concerning plagiarism. I undertake that all the material presented for examination is my own work and has not been written for me, in whole or in part, by any other person. I also undertake that any quotation or paraphrase from the published or unpublished work of another person has been duly acknowledged in the work which I present for examination. Signed: ____________________________ Date: _________________ Word count: 94,808 2 Abstract This thesis examines the nature of cultural property and heritage in Japan, primarily on the basis of fieldwork conducted in the Iwami Ginzan World Heritage site in 2007-2009, which was immediately after its designation by UNESCO. The impact of the designation on the local community of Ōmori is examined. The site, located in the mountains of Shimane Prefecture, contains many items that are administered under various schemes of classifying objects that have been determined to be valuable on the national and regional levels. It thus provides a microcosm of cultural property policy and conflicting interests. Although the resident population is only four hundred, the village contains the ruins of extensive silver mines dating from the sixteenth century, and has maintained a core of buildings from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that have been recognized for their outstanding value. Official recognition changes the property relationship between residents and their built environment by exposing the objects to the reinterpretation of administrators and tourists, but establishes these objects as having unique characteristics worthy of preservation. At a time when technology allows exact reproduction, the identification of unique things of value is a process that converts symbolic to economic capital through branding, which is a method of staking a claim to a resource by restricting its use. Even though those in a community such as Ōmori may not want to engage themselves in this process and prefer to maintain taste preferences and property arrangements that differ from urban standards, the legal regime of cultural property transformation implicates them in its operation. Examples of cultural property from elsewhere in Japan are given, particularly to show how it is used in community improvement programs (machizukuri). The history and language involving cultural property and heritage are discussed. 3 Table of Contents Abstract 3 Acknowledgements 6 Introduction 7 The illusive dialectic of analysis 12 Property under law: Western background 15 Iwami Ginzan: the setting 21 The village of Ōmori-chō 27 Demographic ‘problems’ and the economy 30 World Heritage 37 Japanese cultural property law as derivative: classification schemes 48 Branding in the built environment – spatial designations 61 Methods of intrusion: restoration practice 74 In search of fundamental landscapes 88 Cartesian plots unfold: print-making and geography 94 Making a safe and convenient life: contested visions 102 Orientation in the village space 107 Phantom visions 114 Disciplining perspectives 118 The forces of change 122 Adventures in planning 126 Community improvement: machizukuri 136 Seikatsu bunka: the genealogy of a concept and the lifestyle business 150 Seikatsu bunka as gendered domain 159 Commercial organization 162 Making a business out of a lifestyle 168 4 Local rootedness as a brand 183 Place branding – image and reality 186 Intangible property as a valuation tool – geographical indicators and the new sumptuary law 188 Dreams come true 193 Consumption perspectives 197 Retro-chic 200 Home improvement and land valuation 204 Counter-culture 210 References 213 Table Table 1: National Cultural Property by Type 57 5 Acknowledgements At SOAS, Lola Martinez advised me at every step of the process from potential student through course work, fieldwork and the final thesis submission. Her unfailing encouragement and guidance was a blessing. Steve Hughes and Kevin Latham read a preliminary outline of the thesis at the MPhil stage. Johan Pottier, David Mosse, Louella Matsunaga and Trevor Marchand provided feedback and useful comments during my years of research. Prior to SOAS, I was fortunate to have acquired from several great teachers many of the tools that allowed me to produce this document: Carroll Quigley (Georgetown, History), Michael Zarechnak (Georgetown, Linguistics), Jim McCawley (Chicago, Linquistics), Zbigniew Gołąb (Chicago, Slavic), Akira Komai (Chicago, Japanese), Hal Williams (SMU, History) and Ed Countryman (SMU, History). Two friends at Chicago influenced me far beyond anything we could have imagined at the time. Dave Blanchard introduced me to anthropology and James Lee casually suggested I might try Japanese to fill my non-Western language requirement. Tom and Joyce Seaman provided crucial support while I lived in London and Oxford. In Ōmori, Daikichi, Tomi and Yukiko Matsuba did so much to help I will not be able to repay their kindness for several lifetimes. What follows is really a story of their family, although they might not recognize it. Amy Katoh provided the initial introduction to them, when I was looking for a place to send my daughter to practice her Japanese without the distractions of big city life. Little did they suspect where this would lead. My thesis readers and viva examiners, Michael Rowlands (UCL) and Christoph Brumann (Max Planck - Halle), were a delight and made the whole process seem worthwhile. Finally, my family – Nancy, Dmitri and Saya – allowed me to pursue this program, even though it meant extreme dislocation and disruption to their lives. To the extent I have any sensitivity to personal relationships, and therefore am somehow qualified to investigate anthopological themes, it is because I have lived with them in Tōkyō, Dallas, Princeton and Berkeley. 6 Cultural Property and Heritage in Japan 日本の文化財と遺産 Introduction The genesis of this thesis was a desire to document a set of attitudes and behaviours that I found in a Japanese village which to me, being accustomed to life in Tōkyō, seemed extraordinary; how could people be so engaged with creative activity and the aesthetics of their environment that they appeared to be almost oblivious to the ‘practical’ concerns of economic reality, or if not totally unaware of the forces driving the country at least not much interested in them? They appeared to have decided that there was a better life than accepting the pace and values of urban Japan, and it was based on a return to the strength of their own local traditions – a slow appreciation of community and perception of nature undisturbed by market calculation. I imagined myself eating great meals and taking quiet walks in the mountains. I did end up eating amazingly well, but the rest of the scenario changed abruptly when this peaceful village was designated a World Heritage site. When I arrived in July 2007 to begin proper fieldwork, the train station and several government buildings in Ōda City hung signs reading “Congratulations on World Heritage for Iwami Ginzan!” So, when I got to the village of Ōmori, which is the centre of the designated site, I imagined everyone was thrilled with this news. I began to congratulate people, but was soon told “this is not something to be congratulated about” (omedetai koto-ja nai). The shock of having their world disrupted by becoming famous, accepted as being of ‘universal human value,’ and now a premier tourist destination did not impress them. For the most part, they worried that a way of life was coming to an end, and it was because of the intrusion of a global notion of cultural property. My subject, therefore, changed to examine the nature of this concept from various angles and how it has come to be of increasing importance in the country. There is a formal, legal system that operates to list and define as cultural property those items which are important to various groups. But at the lowest level of community such definitions do not necessarily apply; wholly different values may operate and govern the relationships between people and their environment. Cultural property may be brought forth as a means to control the debate over specific items. This, however, is always a political move that frames a particular narrative and channels social action. 7 The anthropology of Japan, although being concerned with rural life at its inception (Embree 1969 [1939]), has increasingly become pre-occupied with urban issues and viewpoints. But the understanding of such issues has neglected the perspective which can be achieved when rural input is added. This dichotomy between the countryside and the city is very much a central part of cultural property. How can we understand, for example, the way the landscape of Kyōto has been altered over the past thirty years? The pattern of development there has depended on legal practices and community improvement efforts that also apply on a smaller scale in Ōmori, where attitudes on what is lost or gained by change puts into relief what has happened elsewhere.