Function-Based Spatiality and the Development of Korean Communities in Japan: A Complex Adaptive Systems Theory Approach

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Function-Based Spatiality and the Development of Korean Communities in Japan utilizes the theoretical model of complex adaptive systems and introduces the concept of function-based spatiality to investigate the roles of the urban environments of Tokyo and Osaka in the development of Korean communities in Japan. Analysis of distinct Korean communities allows for the examination of urban factors of each city which contributed to the patterns of Korean immigration and community formation. By utilizing a comparative narrative of the two cities, distinctions between the organic growth of Osaka and the planned city of Tokyo are illuminated. Additionally, the discussion utilizes the concept of function-based spatiality to show how each city interacted with its surrounding regional, national, and global spheres. The functions of Tokyo, as a gateway to Western modernization and center of the Japanese state, shaped the interactions with Korean immigrants. Likewise, Osakas functions as a center of mercantilism and second city played a large role in how Koreans were incorporated into the urban ethnoscapes. Taken together, these two examples provide insight to the dynamics of urban systems on the development of immigrant communities.

Reviews

David Randss book tells multiple important stories which address several essential questions about the nature of Tokyo and Osaka, the place of minorities in a Japan that still defines itself as a homogeneous society, and the ways in which urban communities come into being and define themselves. In other words, Rands addresses core questions about why and how two of the largest cities in the world function as they do, why and how a society with long-standing minority groups numbering in the hundreds of thousands still staunchly maintains a self-identity that is homogeneously mono-ethnic, and why and how communities emerge as the basic building blocks of cities.By writing with depth and insight about the complex histories of the presence of Koreans in Tokyo and Osaka, Rands addresses some of the most pressing concerns of contemporary thinking about the twenty-first-century city. -- Blair Ruble, Woodrow Wilson Center
Much that has been written on Japans Korean population has focused on intra-class differences among Koreans or inter-ethnic differences between Koreans and Japanese. David Rands well-researched inquiry offers a fresh perspective to this minoritys history by contrasting its spatial development in Japans most important commercial and political centers, Osaka and Tokyo. In its tracing of the formation of these zainichi centers from the early twentieth century to the postwar period, Function-Based Spatiality and the Development of Korean Communities in Japan underlines the diversity that this population contributes to homogeneous Japanese society. This study should find an eager audience in Japan-Korea relations studies, but also urban development studies, as well. -- Mark Caprio, Rikkyo University
Studying the different spatialities and functionalities of Korean immigrant communities in Japans capital Tokyo and its second city Osaka, David Rands has produced an intriguing book that speaks to multiple academic disciplines and diverse readers. Rands adopts the framework of complex adaptive systems to better understand how individual choices intersect with urban form and therewith provides the reader with a new model to read the complex interactions of migrants and the cities that they live in. A close examination of the economic, social, and cultural structures that respectively characterized Tokyo and Osaka sets the stage for a detailed investigation of different opportunities and difficulties in each place. Studying intersection of Korean migrant communities with local-built environments, the book opens up fascinating new perspectives for diverse research fields including the study of port cities, research on capitals and secondary cities, or examination of Japanese cities in the global context. -- Carola Hein, Bryn Mawr College

Author Bio

David Rands is director of the Asian studies minor and assistant professor in the Department of History and Philosophy at Austin Peay State University.