Anthropologist Theodore Bestor’s ethnography of Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo explores the daily life of this institution and contributes theoretical insights to some of the broader aspects of the anthropology of marketplaces.
Crucially, the market is established as a set of practices (Figure 5.4) which interact with one another, from the porters who move the produce from one area to another to the skilled cutting of expensive tuna, the actual buying and selling of the fish, and the integration of the food into Japanese life, with the influence this has on which cuts and colours are perceived to be the most desirable.
Tsukiji has elements both of a globalized marketplace and of the specificity of Japan, even Tokyo. As the largest seafood market in the world, produce arrives here from across the globe and is bought and sold for domestic as well as overseas consumption. Bestor describes this not as international or global, but as something else entirely: as transnational, as surpassing and moving entirely beyond the notion of sovereign states and towards a complete statelessness. The economics of the market is only briefly touched upon in the account of the market (Figure 5.5), which, like any other endeavour, is constituted of people and practices.
Bestor traces the tuna fishermen off the New England coast (Bestor 2004:301–320) to this fish market in Tokyo. His focus for this work is the controversial trade in Bluefin tuna. The species of fish in question is
FIGURE 5.4 Drawings showing front (a) and rear (b) of Tsukiji market stall and turret truck (c) used for transportation of goods within the market.
large, powerful and fast; they migrate thousands of miles every year, and the quality of the fish has strong cultural associations for those who pay the highest prices for prized specimens (particularly during the first auction of the new year, where the often inflated price is an indicator of the confidence of the market). This study is an example of how intimate knowledge of the workings of an institution is essential to understanding how to design for it. One could approach Bestor’s anthropology of this site as a deep form of site analysis, allowing for design interventions or a whole new market11 to be designed on the basis of the detailed account given. Understanding the roles of everyone working there in an integrated fashion from the porters to the sellers to those cutting the fish or testing quality all contribute to a more complete picture of the site. Where available, the work of anthropologists can be used to gain a deeper understanding of the specific cultural and social aspects of a given place.
The theoretical implications of Bestor’s research can be applied to different places. For example, following the path of a commodity around the world, looking in to how it is sourced, caught, freighted, assessed, sold, bought and consumed, gives us a picture that moves beyond our easy assumptions and towards a full understanding of the economics, cultural and social significance FIGURE 5.5 Author’s Photographs of Tsukiji market.
of any practice, place, event or material. These are the forces which indirectly influence the architecture, either in its initial building, or how it becomes adapted over time.
Bestor suggests that there is a direct connection between the practices of Japanese food preparation and consumption and the ways in which the market operates (2004:176), influencing global seafood consumption through their dominance of the market. Downturns in Tokyo can have an effect as far away New England or Cornwall. This extends to the value attached to certain types and degrees of quality of fish such as the absolute regularity of size, shape and colour required for produce consumed during wedding banquets.
Practices are more than merely the things that people do and the peculiar ways in which they do them, they are deeply ingrained and encultured ways of life, understanding and knowledge of the world embodied in some of our most fundamental interactions: these are echoed in other practices, embedded in connoisseurship, trading patterns and value judgements.
The ethnographic research conducted by Bestor is framed around a long- term engagement with the site of Tsukiji market and a range of the people who work there from porters to company bosses, locals who visit alongside tourists to the high-class restauranteurs who require the very best produce.
The food culture of Japan and of the world at large is presented in microcosm by Tsukiji market. Bestor details the various agencies and actors who have a role in Tsukiji, including the governmental organizations and regulators through to shipping companies, various strata of buyers for the local and overseas markets, wholesalers and many, many more.
Practices include the cutting of the fish, specific forms of finger counting used in the auctioning of fish and the assessment of produce necessary for the top-level buyers. The market operation generally begins at 4 am (although some supporting activities begin at midnight), with the grading and arrangement of produce for the auctions which begin at 6 am (2004:177), described in a multisensory fashion with the lively soundscape of Styrofoam and bells, the mass movement of turret trucks and people, the flopping of live fish and attempts by crabs to escape their tanks.
Bestor describes parts of his research method as open ended, exploring the market for days on end in order to establish its geography. He expected to find organizations akin to neighbourhoods (2004:272) where the space was organized not according to the produce for sale: no section for tuna or for octopus, or where the high end Ginza buyers might all go. This was not the case, however, and the distribution of stalls appeared at first glance to be entirely random. Every 4 to 5 years, the stall locations are subject to a lottery and assigned randomly (Figure 5.6) rather than according to a rational system grouping dried fish, frozen fish and wet fish in subsections, or even separating fish from shellfish and other seafoods.12 In Tsukiji, there is such a heightened
FIGURE 5.6 Contrasting layout of Tsukiji market (Tokyo) and Noryangjin market (Seoul).
sense of locational advantage that the lottery is held in order to ensure any disadvantages aren’t in play for too long a period. The fan-shaped plan of the market and high-pressure environment force this on the organization of the space, where peculiar plan forms, location near to columns or positioning closer to the market entrances can have a massive influence on the potential profits for each stall holder. Bestor himself admits that he had preconceptions about family relationships built over generations or a rational organization based on some technical specifications – the revelation that there was in fact a shake-up every 4 years seemed so illogical in terms of his expectation, but in fact revealed a great deal about the operation of the market both practically and theoretically.13
It is these discoveries based in everyday practices that become incredibly important when analysing the social life of a site. It takes a fully immersed period of research to understand these aspects of the marketplace: an enquiry not loaded with expectations and preconceptions, but open to the reality and complexity of how things really are. The latest phase in the market’s development at Toyosu will be interesting to see how much of Tsukiji’s ways are maintained and what new practices might emerge.