Urbanities,
Vol. 3
·
No 1
·
May 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
51
pictures (of workers in factories and children crafting leather objects) and children’s diaries.
People in the community are aware of the various factors that negatively define the
town; for example, a local informant remarked,
‘the place in which I live is called Kinegawa
and is full of leather and oil factories. Everyone says that it smells bad, that Kinegawa has a
weird smell’. However, the initiatives and exhibitions organized by the museum pay special
attention on certain factors commonly associated with the heterotopic character of the buraku,
and invert these into positive aspects relating to the nation or the city, thereby reducing the
idea of separation between the buraku and the non-buraku. In addition, a special emphasis is
put on those elements that reinforce a sense of local attachment and interconnection. In
particular, the interplay between different individuals, identities, and experiences crossing
local boundaries of the district on a daily basis, leads to a special engagement in and
attachment to the locality of the town that, in a ‘bifocal’ perspective (Durham Peters 1997), is
not seen as separate from wider social relationships. Social actors simultaneously experience
the attachment to the local as both the cause and effect of wider relations with the ‘national’
(for example, with an emphasis on the connection with the everyday life in Tokyo, Japanese
industries). Multiple fields of exchange in which the participation of people might be
extended are hence organized. These include, for instance, ethnic cultural events like food
corners and fashion shows, leather industry events, visits to leather factories organized in
collaboration with schools from the whole city and companies within the context of
D
ō
wa
education.
7
The participation of people and individuals living in the surroundings of
Kinegawa represents an important consequence of this process.
Archives Kinegawa museum includes three main thematic areas strengthening this
local attachment: the history of the town (diaries, pictures); leather tanning, manufacturing
techniques, and industrial materials (leather made objects, machinery, pictures); the
educational project (hand-made items, drawings, pictures). Narratives in Archives Kinegawa
(poems and labels) emphasize aspects of the hometown (
furusato
) by employing
geographical properties of the area, historical accounts (Kinegawa before and after World
War II) and local experiences (leather factories in Kinegawa and the relationship with their
surroundings).
The museum plays a
heterotopic
role in Hetherington's sense by engaging all ‘things
7
D
ō
wa education was initiated by the government and the BLL to tackle buraku and other forms of
discrimination and include programs in schools, programs for buraku adults, and programs for non-
buraku to learn about the issue, often organized in workplaces such as companies.
