From the Trap of Urban Community to the Plurality:

Abstract

This paper clarifies a limitation of modern paradigm in the urban sociology of Japan and proposes a new perspective based on the field research in Bali, Indonesia. This paper adopts a concept ‘pluralistic collectivity’ [C. Geertz] as a core of the philosophy of the social structure in Bali and deal with four case studies, local security, gated community, traditional small green space, and mobilities of Japanese lifestyle migrants. The local security systems are established based on pluralistic collectivity by local people. They contribute to making new local images or multicultural activities of local security. The case of the gated communities and traditional small green space are evaluated as the ‘border spaces’ with the plurality. Japanese lifestyle migrants exist between immigration and tourism. Besides, from the viewpoints of residential mobility and daily mobility, This paper clarifies their ways of using the gated communities, which increase the possibility of their mobilities. Through the re-evaluation of the four case studies from the perspective of Michihiro Okuda’s urban studies, the importance of constituting society from the ‘border spaces’ and of the continuous ‘reflection’ or ‘elaboration’ is proposed.