Tokyo Vernacular

Abstract

Tokyo Vernacular examines how the megacity Tokyo acquired a historical identity in the late twentieth century. Through political activism in public squares, community movements, local history, urban exploration, found art, and museum exhibits of commonplace objects and scenes, Tokyo Vernacular traces a trajectory of citizen involvement in the reimagining of the capital city from the monumental embodiment of national subjectivity to the site of everyday life. In contrast to the prevalent critical reading of postmodern historicism as a form of commodified nostalgia, the book identifies the uses of Tokyo’s past that have emerged since the 1970s as a part of a citizens’ effort to claim the city as common property through vernacular spaces and forms.

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