Within the context of modernization and globalization, processes which Japan has been undergoing since Meiji era, reorganization of the urban space and appearance of new “(semi)-public” spaces, such as railway station, share certain elements in the transformation of everyday life of the Japanese society. This paper will attempt at showing main directions of changes observable in the “society in transition” through analysis of inner order of Tokyo Station, known already also as Tokyo Station City.

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Scholars exploring the entwinement of "authenticity" and "race" in cultural production demonstrate that artists are frequently evaluated according to racialized standards, whereby differences in musical expression are believed not only to be the result of cultural differences but to be rooted in ethnic and racial differences in the popular imagination.Heretofore, the research has focused either on evidencing that authenticity is entirely a social construct or on tracing racially informed discriminatory practices against artists of color. Exponents of an artform traditionally associated with a racial group other than their own are frequently deemed "inauthentic." However, less attention has been devoted to investigating whether, and if so how artists resist, or otherwise deal with, this racialized construction of authenticity. This article contributes to the literature on authenticity, race, and identity in creative work by examining the ways in which artists navigate racialized representations of authenticity in Western art music. The analysis is informed by qualitative research conducted among 75 Japanese musicians in France, Poland, and Japan. It draws on performative theories to conceptualize both authenticity and race as something that people "do" and "redo," rather than "have" or "are." My findings demonstrate that Japanese artists are doing authentic music self through race by self-aligning with a Western personality, a Western sense of music, and by training their bodies to fit Western instruments. The various means available to an artist to resist racialized preconceptions and

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This text is an attempt at a sociological description of the phenomenon of street trading as a form of (in)visible presence in the public space of the city. Street traders are (in)visible in the sense that, in breaking the legal regulations setting the frame for public visibility, they must be invisible to the apparatus of power in order to avoid fines and ensure their ability to achieve their aims, their livelihoods. On the one hand, street traders balance on the edge of the law, transgressing the public order, and on the other hand, they are active creators of its (in)visible portion, metaphorically speaking—protesters against the established socio-cultural structures but in reality people seeking the means to survive.

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