Nostalgia and Heritage-Making in Asian Cities

Project Leader: Akira Matsuda (Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology)
Co-Investigator: Yutaka Suga (Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia), Hiroshi Honda (Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology), Yasushi Sukenari (Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology), Mao Wada (HMC), Zhu Shijie (HMC)
Collaborating Researcher: Lei Ting,(Graduate School of Arts and Sciences), Wu Mengqian (Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology), LEE Kah Hui (Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology), Kohei Suneya (Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology), Ran Aoki (Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology)

This project aims to consider the future of Asian cities by exploring how their past is conceived, represented and used today.

Cities in Asia today are witnessing the rise of nostalgia more than ever before. Perceived as the longing and melancholy for the past, nostalgia has emerged as a response to dizzying rates of modernization which resulted in constant change, discontinuity and displacement among urban communities. As the past is collectively reminisced about and idealized, attempts at rediscovering, restoring and recreating sites and objects related to historic events for popular consumption have become prevalent. Although these activities may appear backward-looking, they are, in fact, forward-looking, in the sense that they seek to create a brand new future of each city by reviving the memory of its past. In this research project, we will undertake multi-sited observations examining how nostalgia for bygone eras is expressed through the making of heritage in Asian cities.

Nostalgia in Tokyo 1