ABSTRACT
This chapter describes processes of placemaking as they occur in Brazilian restaurants in Tokyo, Japan. Placemaking, in its simplest definition, identifies the processes that transform an abstract, unfamiliar space into a familiar and meaningful place (Tuan, 2001). In the following analysis, placemaking is used to identify two different types of activities: place as product and place as process. Place as product is activities purposefully aimed at the production of physical, tangible, and designed sites; place as process is activities that occur in existing locations and transform those material settings into places of significance, memory, and attachment. The former entails the purposeful envisioning, designing, and constructing of the place and reveals an underlining agency. The latter, which may be influenced by the design place, results from repeated actions such as inhabitance (Lefebvre, 1996; Friedmann, 2007), naming and discourse practices (Carter, Donald, & Squires, 1994; Stokowski, 2002), walking (Wunderlich, 2008), and everyday routines (Feuchtwang, 2004). In other words, through seemingly mundane activities and reiteration of practices, the making of a place emerges (Cresswell, 2004).
