過去機場經常被視為是一個疏離而異化的空間,或者被歸於所謂的「非地方」。但目前主要的機場研究成果卻多半反對這個看法,而傾向討論當代機場空間中的地方感。透過對於機場航廈的內部設計和商業空間所進行的分析,本篇論文試圖在這個理論脈絡下與幾個不同的領域對話,並試圖對其討論作出人類學式的回應。本文以日本北海道新千歲國際機場的航廈民族誌,為機場研究提供一個特殊的東亞比較案例,並且藉助Arjun Appadurai的當代人類學理論框架,從物質文化的面向對於機場的地方性生產機制進行分析。經由參與觀察與物質符號的分析,本研究企圖闡明新千歲機場的獨特物質環境安排如何技術性地生產出地方性的感覺結構,並且解析其社會意涵與歷史文化脈絡。藉此,本論文亦嘗試探討機場如何能夠成為一個當代人類學的田野地點。
Airports are usually described as existentially alienated and socially isolated. However, recently researchers have countered this view. Through careful examination of the internal spaces and material sign system of New Chitose Airport in Hokkaido, Japan, I pose a series of arguments regarding the production of locality and the commercial representation of regional culture. The ethnographic and material analysis of this unique airport not only illustrates the technologies that produce the popular imagination of Hokkaido, but also sheds light on the ways in which this northern island is deeply enmeshed in the Japanese history of modernization. In so doing, this paper develops an anthropological study of contemporary Japanese culture by using a regional airport as a field site.