The renaissance of Takefu : how people and the local past changed the civic life of a regional Japanese town / Guven Peter Witteveen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Witteveen, Guven Peter, 1962-

Series:

East Asia (New York, N.Y.)

East Asia, history, politics, sociology, culture

Language:

English

Japanese

Subjects (All):

Takefu-shi (Japan)--History.

Takefu-shi (Japan).

Physical Description:

xii, 244 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Routledge, 2004.

Summary:

This book tells the story of a citizen group through the example and results of their participation in local civic life. The book draws attention to the complicated conditions under which civic participation may succeed. The story is about the individuals and organizations in the regional Japanese town of Takefu, but these events are also placed in the context of the surrounding Japanese Sea region of west Japan and the wider currents of the Japanese nation-state at the time. The author relies on participant observation, conversations, surveys, and interviews in order to weave primary sources with his own observations. Combined with scholarship on citizen movements, cultural politics, and historical representation, the result is a memorable account about good people persevering in their love of their townscape, in spite of numerous socially and culturally rooted obstacles. Also inlcludes maps.

Notes:

Includes appendix and cross-references to bibliography in Japanese.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-239) and index.

ISBN:

0415933706

OCLC:

52373260