Making African Places in Japanese Space

Abstract

AbstractThis article examines the process of “place‐making” among Africans in Japan. Ethnographically, this paper explores how these places operate for the Africans who frequent them, underscoring how these particular sites function as “points of sociality.” Through an ethnography of a Tokyo neighborhood and an African establishment, I show how places are made African through a unique set of conditions. This essay demonstrates how, in some instances, African place‐making offers sites from which various forms of African nationalisms come together through continent‐based community formations in Japan. By drawing upon scholarship on space, place, identity, race, and public communality, it explores the multifaceted ways these “made places” assist Africans as they navigate the difficulties of life in Japan. I argue that “place‐making” can be operationalized within the broader context of a changing Japanese society in order to understand the emergence of African places within Japanese space.