Report of Research Exchange, Summer 2003

David Rands

Through the gracious funding from the project, I was able to spend 10 weeks in Osaka where I was privileged to have access to the library facilities at Osaka City University, and conduct preliminary fieldwork for my dissertation on the development of the Korean populations. As a part of this research I familiarized myself with Osaka, something that I would have been unable to do without actually spending time there and walking the streets, as well as access the immense archival data of the Osaka City University libraries. In my association with the faculty at OCU, I was able to travel with Professor Takashi Yamazaki as he introduced his students to various minority communities throughout Japan. It is with Professor Yamazaki that I was able to visit the Shin-Okubo area of Tokyo and visually see the contrast between the Korean community there, and the community in the Tsuruhashi district of Osaka. Through the considerate support of Professor Toshio Mizuuchi, I was able to present my research, titled "The Formation of the Korean Community in Osaka: Development of a Unique Community," at The East Asian Regional Conferences in Alternative Geography, held from August 5-9, 2003 in Tokyo and Osaka. This experience allowed me to participate on a panel with noted scholars such as Anthony Fielding, and Paul Waley, and I had the opportunity of discussing much of my research with the conference's keynote speaker, Edward Soja. All of the scholars at the conference were quite helpful in my developing conceptualization of the organization and development of urban environments. As I have continued to enhance my understanding of the relationships between migrant groups and the urban environments into which they often move, my experience in Osaka, made possible through the generosity of the LA-Osaka Comparative Urban Studies Project, has served as a foundation upon which I have steadily built.