Building community identity through omiyage and location based social media

Abstract

Most towns and regions in Japan produce their own local omiyage, souvenir sweets, made from regional ingredients, which contribute to the identity of the area and its people. As a large city, Tokyo is not considered agriculturally productive, and the entire megacity is represented collectively by one well-known omiyage made of foreign grown ingredients, the Tokyo Banana. This paper identifies the opportunity for the cultivation of fruit within the city in the form of "urban orchards," and considers ways of using location-based social media as a means to both produce and market the products of specific neighbourhoods in Tokyo.