John Ruskin once wrote: "We may live without her [architecture], and worship without her, but we cannot remember without her" (Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, 1849, p.147). His writing provided reasoning for preservation of old buildings. More than a century and a half later, preservation movements such as the British and American National Trusts have become popular and are currently enjoying a moment of expansion. Why, then, has there been almost no sociological literature on the topic, even though sociology has traditionally paid very close attention to various kinds of social movements? Why has sociology been so silent about the people who try to remember the City? Tracing the history and development of preservation movements in industrial countries, and that of the U.S. in particular, this paper reports present issues in historic preservation and analyzes how preservation philosophy has evolved over time. In doing so, the author shows how an early prototype of preservation movement played a crucial role in discouraging sociology from dealing with the preservation issue, with the result that sociology has failed to convincingly portray who those preservationists are. Through a case study of a major preservation movement in Japan, the author claims that the movement was hardly monolithic and identifies at least four different types of participants within the preservation movement, giving a much clearer picture of the preservationists. The data used and reported here is based on fieldwork carried out by the author in the U.S. (2004-2006) and Japan (1984-2006).
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