The Amusement Quarter in the Night Constructed as Social Space

Abstract

In recent years, there has been much debate over the social production of space and the relationship between social subject and space. The author, emphasizing the social structural context, contributes to this debate by identifying social space focused on one district. This paper seeks to reveal the significant relationship in which society and space are reconstructed in the late modern era, considering the differences between subjective space and objective space, mass behavior during weekend nights, and the factors influencing the mechanism of perception. To put it concretely, the purpose of this paper is to explain how youths, between the ages of 15 and 29, use the space and act in the night amusement quarter applying the concept of social space, and to examine the experiences of this generation using the ethnographical method.A case study was carried out in the EKIMAE district, the redeveloped area in front of Toyama station, Toyama City. EKIMAE is a commonly used name for the space. Social space refers to subjective social space expressed as a mental map depicted in the youths' own way. On the other hand, objective social space is the space bounded by the regulator of public space, the Toyama Police Department, which is a police patrolling area defined by their own territorial perception in order to monitor and control the populace. Neither space, objective and subjective, is an official administrative district.The remarkable result of various examinations of these spaces is that NANPA spot, a place where girl or boy hunting are conducted, is equivalent to subjective social space and plays an important role for the youth to maintain their identity. Examining the way in which commodities were selected by the youth in the questionnaire, it was demonstrated that various commodities are obstacles to their entry. Furthermore, when they participate in the space as an actor or observer, space functions as theater in a high consumption society. As such, the space where youths encounter one another is constructed as subjective social space and they therefore tend to feel their perceived territory as home.This analysis assists us in understanding the quality of late modern places and how subject and place become inextricably intertwined in the context of social structure.