Sensing Tokyo

Why Sensing Tokyo? With the word ‘sense’ I hope to conjure multi meanings. Firstly, sensing Tokyo in terms of recognition and understanding. Secondly, sense referring to the stimulation of the senses that are received, perceived and felt. Here, I borrow from Rodaway’s ‘Sensuous Geographies’ that explores ‘the multisensual and multidimensional situatedness in space and in relationship to places’ (Rodaway, 2011: 4). Whereas he concentrates on touch, taste, sound and sight, I will give more time to emotional and experiential geographies.

I decided to come to Tokyo, as someone with Japanese heritage trying to gain a greater understanding or sense of the city. But I question, whether it is London or Tokyo; how do you get a 'sense of place'? What does it mean to know a city and what are the implications of that knowledge? If I consider London; my unique way of knowing this city has culminated in the years I have spent there: the visiting and revisiting of places, the people I have met and re-met. Often the more tangible the experiences of place, the greater sense of place I feel. As an example, when living in the Hackney Wick area prior to the Olympics, I witnessed the area slowly become barricaded, felt the presence of the army everyday protecting the canal, experienced the free parking we were privileged to become charged, witnessed the growth of shops, the closure of shops, the destruction and construction of infrastructure and residence. In this way, knowing a city is about knowing its materiality and knowing its history: how it has changed and what effect it has on its residents.

But why do we experience such emotion towards place? Whether objects, neighbourhoods, cities or countries, much like with people, we develop psychological bonds to places (Gustafson, 2001). Through annual rituals, daily events, memory and public rights, places are ascribed meaning; linking affect, emotions, knowledge, beliefs, and behaviours with place (Low and Altman, 1992). This 'place attachment' is often linked to a sense of safety, comfort and belonging (Hernandez et al., 2007).

Despite this sense of place appearing static or bounded, we can construct attachments or place-identity relations that extend beyond immediate place (Massey, 1994). Places are constructed through imaginations of ‘roots and routes’ that both are here and there (Gilroy, 1993). The consequent ‘mobility turn’ in human geography seeks to understand how transnationalism, mobility or lack of, interacts with place and identity. Many argue that individuals have multiple place attachments at varied spatial scales depending on identity and family attachments (Li and McKercher, 2016).

With the knowledge of my transient positionality as an exchange student living in Japan for a year, it will be interesting to see in what ways Tokyo will leave its impression on me. To return back to the future. How does this lineage and thinking help create this blog? My idea is to study the spaces and places of Tokyo through research on the built environment, ideas of publicness, memory, time, imaginations and power through methodologies of seeing, sensing, walking, cycling and experiencing. 

References

Gilroy, P (1993) The black Atlantic: Modernity and double consciousness. London: Verso

Gustafson, P (2001) Roots and Routes: Exploring the Relationship between Place Attachment and Mobility, Environment and Behaviour, 33, 5, 667-686.

Hernandez, B., Carmen, H., Salazar-Laplace, E, M., and S. Hess (2007) Place attachment and place identity in natives and non-natives, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 27, 4, 310-319.  

Li, T., and McKercher, B (2016) Effects of place attachment on home return travel: a spatial perspective, Tourism Geographies, 18, 4: 1-18. 

Low, S., and Altman, I. (1992). Place attachment: A conceptual inquiry. In Altman, I., & Low, S. (eds.), Place attachment, New York: Plenum Press. 1-12.

Rodaway, P (2011) Sensuous Geographies: Bodies, Sense and Place. Routledge: London.