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Watson M K, 2010, "Diasporic Indigeneity: place and the articulation of Ainu identity in Tokyo, Japan" Environment and Planning A 42(2) 268 – 284
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Diasporic Indigeneity: place and the articulation of Ainu identity in Tokyo, Japan

Mark K Watson

Received 4 April 2008; in revised form 13 December 2008; published online 19 October 2009

Abstract. Representations of Indigenous people as rooted and sedentary reinforce ideas of their presence in cities as strange and out of place. This is problematic. In a world where an increasing number if not majority of Indigenous people live in urban or metropolitan areas, cities are now critical sites of Indigenous negotiation, appropriation, marginalization, and emplacement. This paper opens up the analysis of urban Indigenous life from the perspective of place and its role in the articulation of urban Indigenous identities. It takes as a case study the situation of indigenous Ainu in and around Tokyo. The interrogation of place highlights how Ainu are socially active in the city and critiques the regionalization of Ainu affairs to northern Japan.

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