Project/Area Number |
22K01909
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Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
Section | 一般 |
Review Section |
Basic Section 08010:Sociology-related
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Research Institution | Sophia University |
Principal Investigator |
Farrer James 上智大学, 国際教養学部, 教授 (40317508)
|
Project Period (FY) |
2022-04-01 – 2026-03-31
|
Project Status |
Granted (Fiscal Year 2023)
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Budget Amount *help |
¥4,160,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥960,000)
Fiscal Year 2025: ¥780,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥180,000)
Fiscal Year 2024: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥300,000)
Fiscal Year 2023: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥300,000)
Fiscal Year 2022: ¥780,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥180,000)
|
Keywords | foodways / food studies / community / resilience / social sustainability / public ethnography / COVID |
Outline of Research at the Start |
This research will investigate how urban restaurants contribute to urban life as creative industries and also how they have (and haven't) survived the crisis of COVID. Restaurants are key to city life, and COVID is the greatest direct economic and social threat they have face in peacetime. It remains unclear how COVID has undermined or transformed urban restaurant scenes. It is also unclear how restaurants have coped and survived. This research should provide some answers to these important sociological and policy-relevant questions by comparing the situation in Tokyo to that in other cities.
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Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
The project continues to focus on ethnographic fieldwork on independent food and beverage businesses in Western Tokyo. The research looked at responses to acute crises, including COVID, and to longer-term crises such as societal aging and slow economic growth. Student researchers participated with the PI in interviews. A portion of the interviews are made available through a public ethnography project called Nishiogiology.org. This project reaches thousands of members of the community as well as overseas scholars and visitors In addition to this fieldwork in Japan, the PI made visits to overseas destinations in which collaborators were found for comparative research. Contacts were established in Europe and the USA. Joint presentations are planned with overseas partners.
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Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
The Japan-based research is proceeding smoothly and is already producing scholarly papers and having an impact in the local community. Access to the fieldwork sight and the support of student assistants facilitates this data gathering and dissemination. The overseas portion of the project however proceeds slowly and in a much reduced form to that initially planned. Because of the declining value of the yen and global inflation, comparative research is now being conducted largely through collaboration with overseas scholars.
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Strategy for Future Research Activity |
The interview portion of the project is continuing through the summer of 2024. However, the focus is now shifting towards writing a book based on the Tokyo portion of the data gathering. The PI is also planning on participating in a comparative conference in Shanghai in Fall 2024 that will lay the ground-work for a joint international publication with a comparative focus. The public ethnography portion of the research continues with the publication of the website Nishiogiology and also with appearances in mainstream media, especially television programs.
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