16 Tania Lewis
in socioeconomic change. Discussing various examples of cooperative living
associations, she argues that, while they draw on the philosophies of dure, in
contrast to the hierarchical village-based arrangement of older-style community
organizations, the new co-ops bring together participants from a range of class
backgrounds in a largely horizontal structure that is in turn supported by the use of
social media and grassroots-driven alternative media activities such as podcasts.
The co-ops thus offer a complex and innovative hybrid model of adapting and
blending old and new forms of community as a way of integrating environmental,
social equity and participatory politics for urban living.
In chapter 11, Terada, Yokohari, and Amemiya offer another set of insights into
emergent environmentally inflected practices and community, focusing on the rise of
urban farming in Japan and especially Tokyo. While they observe that urban farming
in Japan and globally can be understood in terms of an increasing engagement with
everyday environmentalism, they argue that the growing interest in urban farming in
Japan also needs to be understood in the context of a shift in work culture away from
the “company man or woman” to a growing focus on individual lifestyles. In this
context, they argue that a growing number of workers are choosing to be part-time
farmers while maintaining their jobs, a lifestyle that dovetails well with the distinct
mixed-use urban-agricultural landscape of Tokyo. They conclude by imagining how
Tokyo as an urban-rural city might offer more socially and ecologically sustainable
models for living in urban environments throughout Asia and beyond.
Finally Ka-ming Wu’s chapter on the rise of organic farming in urban Hong Kong
provides a fascinating comparison and contrast to emergent practices in Tokyo.
Based on an in-depth case study of an organic farm set up in the New Territories,
it analyses the rise, role, and impact of farming-based activism in Hong Kong. As
Wu shows, these green activists’ concerns are not only with supporting organic
food and sustainable modes of living but also with contesting the hegemony of real
estate developers in a city where there is very little local food production. Through
extensive fieldwork, Wu shows how the activists have used a range of creative
consumer and lifestyle-oriented activities and events from farm tours and farmer’s
markets to bread-baking classes in order to recruit members of the general public
into a broader critical discussion and engagement with questions of local Hong
Kong history, environmental activism, lifestyle consumption, and the “productive”
use of space in Hong Kong. Like many of the contributions in this collection,
Wu’s chapter points to the complex imbrication of environmental issues and social
practices in wider historical, socio-cultural and political contexts and the need for
reflexive, flexible and localized “solutions” that engage with these contexts.
Notes
1 As The Guardian reported in 2015, China’s continued coal dependence has seen
growing problems with environmental deserts, noting that in one province, a quarter of
a million “environmental refugees” have had to be relocated due to rising temperatures
and drought (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2015/jun/05/
carbon-bomb-the-coal-boom-choking-china?CMP=ema-60).