Spaces & Flows: Ninth International Conference on Urban and ExtraUrban Studies

Abstract

Recent waves of migrants in Europe have raised intense political controversies and sparked support for anti-immigrant, far right political parties. Theorist Joseph Carens argues that basic human rights mean most forms of closed borders are ethically problematic. Political philosopher David Miller has cautioned that very open immigration policies can be detrimental to important values of social cohesion and social justice. In months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in both Bologna, Italy and Tokyo, Japan, I have examined the effects of two different approaches to migrants on social cohesion in the urban spaces of these two aging communities. Rapid immigration met with a chaotic policy response has caused social tensions, even anger, in spaces where migrant population is densest in Bologna. But tight controls on migration in Japan, in combination with the aging of the native population, has led to a hollowing out of urban space that has isolated elderly in once vibrant Tokyo neighborhoods, eroding social cohesion there, too. This Italian-Japanese comparison allows us to think more critically about the dilemma of inclusion in cities, moving beyond insider and outsider distinctions and abstract rights discourses to practical questions about how neighborhoods are held together as they change.