Cover Locals, New-locals, Non-locals (Re)mapping people and food in post-disaster Ishinomaki, Japan by Duccio Gasparri BA, MA A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the award of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Oxford Brookes University March 2019 1 2 Contents Cover .................................................................................................................................. 1 Abstract .............................................................................................................................. 6 Acknowledgments. ............................................................................................................. 7 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 8 1 The Great Disaster, Ishinomaki, and its food .............................................................. 8 2 Traveling to timeless rural Japan .............................................................................. 13 3 Aims and structure of the thesis ................................................................................ 16 Chapter 1: Literature Review ........................................................................................... 21 1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 21 1.2.Perspectives on Tōhoku: from ‘famine stricken hell’ to ‘heartland Japan’. .......... 22 1.3 Furusato, Japan ....................................................................................................... 24 1.4 Subaltern Tōhoku: envisioning the Japanese Northeast through Gramsci ............. 33 1.5 Aftermath: The Anthropology of Disaster.............................................................. 39 1.6 Identification: The Anthropology of Food ............................................................. 47 1.7 Notes on Methodology, and an Elephant in the Room .......................................... 54 1.7.a Ethnographic fieldwork and techniques ......................................................... 54 1.7.b Post-disaster demographics ............................................................................ 62 1.7.c On gender ........................................................................................................ 67 1.7.d On radioactivity .............................................................................................. 68 Chapter 2: Locals – Fishermen and entrepreneurs ........................................................... 72 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 72 2.2 Fisherman Japan and Ishinomaki ryōshi ................................................................ 75 2.3 Goro ....................................................................................................................... 77 2.4 Ōzu ......................................................................................................................... 80 2.5 Morishima .............................................................................................................. 82 2.6 Feeding Ishinomaki ................................................................................................ 85 2.6.a Katō ................................................................................................................. 85 2.8.b Iwasaki ............................................................................................................ 87 2.9 Again Station .......................................................................................................... 91 2.10 Conclusion: the sea-pineapple at the end of the world ........................................ 94 Chapter 3: New-Locals – Mavericks and chefs ............................................................... 97 3.1 Introduction: a very cold place ............................................................................... 97 3.2 Gastro-volun-tourism ........................................................................................... 100 3.2.a Ima, Koko (Here, Now) ................................................................................. 101 3 3.2.b A visit to Ogi-no-Hama ................................................................................. 106 3.2.c Kaki no Wa (Oyster link, or Oyster ring) ..................................................... 108 3.3 Ningen-kusai pictures ........................................................................................... 112 3.4 No recipes in Ishinomaki ..................................................................................... 114 3.5 Rebuilding Ishinomaki ......................................................................................... 117 3.6 Conclusion: Un-vanishing mediators, culinary brokers, creators of content. ...... 120 Chapter 4: Non-Locals – inscribing Tōhoku .................................................................. 127 4.1 Non-locals: hetero-directed narratives of Tōhoku-ness and Ishinomaki-ness from their historical roots to the contemporary .................................................................... 127 4.2 Framing the issue: Destination Tōhoku (2012), and Tōhoku Treasureland (2016) tourism campaigns and the repairing of the Nation ..................................................... 129 4.3 Liminal encounters, a quest for something lost, and the kappa: Reborn Art Festival ......................................................................................................................... 136 4.4 ‘Too many middlemen’: looking at Tōhoku from the Ivy League ...................... 145 4.5 Concluding thoughts: foreshadowing subalternity .............................................. 150 Chapter 5: Bringing people in – subjective spaces, transversal practices ...................... 154 5.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 154 5.2 Virtual invasion – the space politics of Pokémon in Ishinomaki ......................... 156 5.3 The Hama-Saisai .................................................................................................. 161 5.4 Tako-meshi (or anti-oyster) .................................................................................. 164 5.5 Genki Ichiba – remapping supermarkets in Ishinomaki downtown .................... 168 5.6 3/11 Anniversary celebration: the mourning and the dancing (Ishinomaki & Onagawa) ..................................................................................................................... 173 5.6.a Onagawa: run to the hills ............................................................................. 173 5.6.b Ishinomaki: ‘the Zone’ .................................................................................. 175 5.7 Conclusion: Crises and Places ............................................................................. 177 Chapter 6: Moving food out – freshness and power ...................................................... 185 6.1 Introduction: a small parcel from my mother arrived .......................................... 185 6.2 The Wotani-ya ...................................................................................................... 189 6.3 Selling Miyagi-ness – the Antenna Shop ............................................................. 195 6.4 The young man and the sea(squirt) ...................................................................... 198 6.5 Conclusion - shared ethics of the creative class ................................................... 202 Chapter 7: Representing Ishinomaki .............................................................................. 209 7.1 Art, memory, disaster ........................................................................................... 209 7.2 Takeuchi – Shutters, stray cats, and rubbish ........................................................ 210 7.3 Four views of Ishinomaki .................................................................................... 214 4 7.4 Matsuo – opaque memories ................................................................................. 221 7.5 Ueki – performing the hoya ................................................................................. 224 7.6 Reframing the everyday ....................................................................................... 229 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 235 1 Serendipity of the Vanishing ................................................................................... 235 3 Locals, new-locals, non-locals: entwined trajectories ............................................ 239 4 Shinsai-mae, shinsai-go: stitching time, space and people ..................................... 241 5 Apocalyptic creativity ............................................................................................. 243 6. Food for thought – concluding remarks ................................................................. 247 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 252 Appendix 1 – Images ..................................................................................................... 287