James Farrer

The concept of social sustainability presents many questions for food studies, both about how communities sustain foodways, and how foodways sustain communities. Based on an ethnographic study of restaurants in a single Tokyo neighborhood, this research focuses on how commercial restaurant scenes in a busy area of Tokyo serve as social infrastructure, supporting community life. First, they are an economic resource for employers, workers, and customers, an accessible, though risky, point of entry into business ownership for disadvantaged or resource-poor people. Secondly, eateries are a resource for social organization and networking, that is, spaces in which varieties of social capital can be created and deployed. Thirdly, neighborhood eateries are infrastructure for political mobilization both in the formal organization of local merchant associations but also for informal and oppositional social movements. Overall, the research shows how urban neighborhood restaurant scenes may serve as a “place framing” device through which a community defines and spatially locates what is worthwhile in community life. (8497 words)

The most significant and lasting contributions of Ken Plummer to the sociology of sexuality have been his work on sexual storytelling. Best represented in Plummer’s 1995 book Telling Sexual Stories: Power, Change and Social Worlds, this approach to sexuality made two key points. One is that sexual storytelling is fundamental to the formation of individual sexual identities and a process of sexual self-discovery. The second is that sexual storytelling is a key social process in a broader sexual politics and struggles for “intimate citizenship.” Plummer’s work has significance, however, far beyond studies a simple model of sexual identity formation. Building upon a review of the research literature citing Plummer as well our own research, this essay explores three dimensions of Plummer’s narrative sociology that include but also take us beyond sexuality studies. One is Plummer’s contribution to the concept of “storytelling” as anti-foundationalist social ontology practice. The second is narrative sociology as humanistic methodology. The third is the significance of the narrative method for a dialogic pedagogy, not only in teaching about sexuality but also in other areas of social life.

Neighbourhood gastronomy, the agglomeration of restaurants and smaller eateries in residential urban areas, contributes to the lives of residents and visitors economically, culturally, and socially. Since winter 2020, neighbourhood gastronomy in Asian cities has been severely disrupted by COVID, compounded by many other long-term stressors. In urban Japan these stresses include gentrification, the aging of proprietors, urban renewal, and corporatization of gastronomy. Empirically, this paper discusses how independent restaurants in Tokyo contribute to community life by supporting grassroots creative industries, small business opportunities, meaningful artisanal work, convivial social spaces, local cultural heritage, and a human-scale built environment. The study uses intensive single-site urban ethnography to discuss how restaurateurs face immediate and long-term crises at the community level. By using the “neighborhood as method,” a concept of sustainable neighbourhood gastronomy is developed that should be applicable in other urban contexts.

Globally, independent restaurants have been dealt a double blow by COVID-19. Restaurant staff face the risk of infection, and restaurants have been among the businesses hardest hit by urban lockdowns. With fewer resources than corporate chains, small independent restaurants are particularly vulnerable to an extended economic downturn. This paper looks at how independent restaurants owners in Tokyo have coped with the pandemic both individually and as members of larger communities. Both government and community support have been key to sustaining these small businesses and their employees during this crisis.

“Nightlife” has reemerged in China since the “opening and reform policies” of 1978. Genres of contemporary Chinese nightlife include bars, dance clubs, karaoke clubs and saunas, all of which have influenced by transnational flows of investments, ideas and people. Nightlife is an important space for the study of Chinese social stratification and the study of sexual subcultures in Chinese cities. Nightlife is thus an area in which we can study the transnational processes of cultural change in China, while examining the possibilities of individual agency, resistance and creativity within these organizing structures.

Sexual politics on China’s internet entered a new age with the “Mu Zimei phenomenon” in 2003. With the publication of Mu Zimei's sex diary and the controversy surrounding, millions of Chinese “netizens” became involved in a debate over sexual rights that involve a wide variety of claims and counter claims, including claims of freedom of expression, social progress, natural rights, property rights, women's rights, rights of privacy, and community responsibilities. The cases of Mu Zimei and subsequent women bloggers point out how sexual rights discourse should be understood as an adversarial dialogue among a variety of social actors using a variety of discursive frameworks, a view consistent with a dialogic conception of sexual politics on the internet.