What world is this? Students’ urban ethnography of Tokyo - Itinerant Seminar “Contemporary Tokyo Seminar Series”

This presentation examines the potential of teaching urban ethnography as a means of accessing marginalized ways of knowing Tokyo. It conceptualizes the classroom as a site of co-production of urban knowledge, where students’ lived experiences function as ethnographic resources, as Tokyo is already embedded in students’ everyday lives through sensory encounters, memories, emotions, and spatial practices. While students enroll in urban studies courses to acquire analytical tools, they also bring forms of situated knowledge that remain underrepresented in dominant academic discourses and formal urban policy. Many of these students—whether young local citizens or foreign sojourners—are structurally excluded from decision-making processes, yet they actively participate in the production and observation of urban space as part-time workers, members of civic groups, consumers, and flâneurs. Their perspectives reveal dimensions of Tokyo that are often overlooked in academic research and institutional representations.

Specifically, the presentation analyzes ethnographic assignments produced by undergraduate students enrolled in the Global Liberal Arts Program (GLAP) courses Global City and Cross-fields Research at Rikkyo University. Japanese and international students were asked to conduct fieldwork in their neighborhoods or places of personal significance and to produce ethnographic reports incorporating field notes, sketches, maps, and photographs. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear that being outside was therapeutic for these students, offering them an opportunity to reflect on their place or non-placeness in the city, both spatially and socially. By examining these student-generated analyses, the presentation demonstrates how pedagogical ethnography can reveal alternative urban sites, imaginaries, and practices, contributing to a more plural and grounded understanding of contemporary Tokyo.