After Displacement: Excavating Memories of Migrant Sex Workers and Becoming Entangled with the Water Trade in Yokohama by Ayaka Yoshimizu M.A. (Communication), Simon Fraser University, 2008 B.A. (Political Science), Keio University, 2004 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Communication Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology © Ayaka Yoshimizu 2016 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Fall 2016 Approval Name: Ayaka Yoshimizu Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Title: After Displacement: Excavating Memories of Migrant Sex Workers and Becoming Entangled with the Water Trade in Yokohama Examining Committee: Chair: Alison Beale Professor Kirsten E. McAllister Senior Supervisor Associate Professor Dara Culhane Supervisor Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Zoë Druick Supervisor Professor Christine Kim Internal Examiner Associate Professor Department of English Grace Cho External Examiner Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology College of Staten Island The City University of New York Date Defended/Approved: October 3, 2016 ii Ethics Statement iii Abstract In January 2005, a raid organized by the Prefectural Police in Yokohama, Japan, evicted independent sex trade businesses run by migrant women, predominantly from other regions of Asia in the marginalized district of Koganecho. The police and a group of local residents promoted the eradication of baishun [prostitution], using slogans about making the neighbourhood “safe” and “secure” and free of illegal foreigners and HIV carriers. Based on the ethnographic fieldwork I conducted over nine months, this dissertation explores question, what happens after transnational migrant sex workers are displaced from the city? in two ways. Organized into two parts, this dissertation first aims to critique the processes through which the lives of displaced migrants get further erased in the “memoryscapes” (Yoneyama 1999, Riano-Alcala 2006, McAllister 2010, 2011) of the city at both material and discursive levels. I analyze the built environment, official historical discourses in museum exhibitions and municipal policies, and local grassroots cultural productions in the forms of photography, films and film festivals. After analyzing the dominant memoryscapes of Yokohama, my dissertation brings to light the site of displacement where I encountered people of two water trade communities, one primarily Japanese and the other primarily Thai that emerged or survived in the aftermath of the police raid. Here I highlight the processes where I was “entangled” (Ingold 2008) with the local social relations and “confronted” by people in the field (Fabian 2001, p.25), having my research rejected or questioned in unexpected ways. Those moments forced me to be reflexive and turned my gaze from memories and experiences of others to my own as a site of critical scrutiny and ethnographic practice. In Part II, I attempt to share an embodied sense of what happens after displacement at an everyday interaction level, which I tentatively call an alternative memoryscape of the city. While the two parts respond to my research question differently, they share a common epistemological premise that the knowledge I present in my dissertation emerged through my “body as a site of knowing” (Pink 2015), as I engaged with the social, sensory, imaginary and material place of my research. iv Keywords: Displacement; transnational migration; memory; sensory ethnography; sex work; Yokohama v Dedication To Mia. vi Acknowledgements First and foremost, I acknowledge all the migrant women, who inhabited and then were displaced from Koganecho, a former brothel district in Yokohama, in which I carried out my research. My dissertation reflects on the displacement of those women, and, I recognize, it was the fundamental condition that enabled my research. I also acknowledge people whom I met in Yokohama during my fieldwork, who dedicated their time, insights and labour to me so I could produce my research materials and write this dissertation. My encounters with them changed the way I imagined, felt about and related to Yokohama and the way I pursued my research. This dissertation is a product of my eight years of work at Simon Fraser University. My home, the School of Communication, taught me how to engage with the world critically and how to politicize cultural and communicative processes—to see everyday meaning-making as a matter of politics and a site for social change. I thank the faculty, the staff and my colleague at the School for creating an inspiring, safe and respectful learning environment. Thanks to Professor Alison Beale for dedicating your time to serve as the chair at my defence. I would like to take this opportunity to thank staff members of the School of Communication for their everyday assistance that supported my doctoral work. Thanks to Jason Congdon for the administrational work and support. I also thank Lucie Menkveld, Neena Shahani, Amy Soo, and Denise Vanderwolf. You made me feel at home on campus. vii I am grateful that I had such strong support for this research from my friends whom I met at Simon Fraser University both within and outside the School of Communication. I want to thank Daniel Ahadi, Julia Aoki, Dorothy Christian, Pat Feindel, Mirjam Gollmitzer, Helen Kang, Maryam Kiani, Marcos Moldes, Nawal Musleh-Motut, Rima Noureddine, Milan Singh, Itrath Syed, and Sherry Yu for being wonderful colleagues. You were always inspiring, kind and generous. Special thanks go to Julia Aoki for her intellectual engagement and copy-editing work on my dissertation. I am deeply grateful to my supervisory committee for their generous support and dedicated guidance. Thanks to Professor Dara Culhane and Professor Zoë Druick, for their insightful advice, critiques, questions and encouragement. Thank you Professor Culhane for introducing me the scholarship of sensory ethnography and teaching me the fundamental of ethnographic fieldwork. Your experience in fieldwork, knowledge and wisdom helped me make important decisions during my research and writing processes. Thank you Professor Druick for your refreshing and inspiring input that pushed me to imagine my project beyond my boundaries. Your courses on documentary films, which I participated as a student and teaching assistant, allowed me think creatively about my form of writing. This dissertation was a life-changing project—it transformed me as a researcher, an educator and a person, and this involved moments of both enlightenment and crisis. Thanks to Dr. Kirsten Emiko McAllister, my senior supervisor, for guiding me throughout this process with dedication and patience. The amount and extent of the support I received from you is tremendous. Without your dedication in research, teaching and community work, I would have had many more obstacles carrying out my project. viii Your work in cultural memory, political violence, critical and creative research and writing, and commitment to ethics and justice has laid a path for me to follow. I felt strong and assured walking this path. Special recognition goes to my family and friends in Japan. My parents, Akemi Yoshimizu and Shoichi Yoshimizu, created a safe space for me to nurture my critical perspectives and interests in cultural differences throughout my childhood. Thank you for your unconditional love and continuous support. I thank my lifelong friends, Mayumi Iijima and Mayumi Shimizu, who have always been close to me despite the geographical distance that separates us all. I would like to express my gratitude to Masayuki Iwase for the family support he offered me during my dissertation process. Finally, I am indebted to Tadafumi Tamura for being both a strong supporter and an honest critic of my research, without which my dissertation would not have been as emotionally and intellectually invested as this. Thank you for your inspirations, challenging questions and comments, patience, respect and trust. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the financial support that made this project possible. Thanks to the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan, CD Nelson Memorial Graduate Scholarship, Pacific Century Graduate Scholarship, CanWest Global Graduate Fellowship in Communications, President’s PhD Research Stipend, William & Ada Isabelle Steel Memorial Graduate Scholarship, COGECO Graduate Scholarship in Communication, Michael Stevenson Graduate Scholarship and SFU’s School of Communication for funding my doctoral studies. ix Table of Contents Approval ............................................................................................................................. ii Ethics Statement ................................................................................................................. iii Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv Dedication .......................................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... vii Table of Contents .................................................................................................................x Introduction: After Displacement ....................................................................................1 Water Trade and Water City ..............................................................................................10