VEILED VISIBILITY: SPATIAL MEMORY AND QUEER IDENTITY IN SHINJUKU NI-CHōME

veiled man with mask
Date
Author
Mike Kaneshiro Chou (MUP/MPH ’25)
Prizes

Thesis Prize in Urban Planning

Faculty Advisors
Dana McKinney White
Peter Rowe

Mike Kaneshiro Chou (MUP/MPH ’25)

Winner of the 2025 Thesis Prize in Urban Planning, Mike Kaneshiro Chou (MUP/MPH ’25) examines Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ni-Chōme as a “Queersphere”—a paradoxical space of visibility and discretion, resilience and vulnerability. Through ethnographic fieldwork, spatial analysis, and archival research, the thesis explores how queer communities actively shape urban life, challenging planners to rethink inclusivity, heritage, and belonging.

In a moment of rising anti-LGBTQ+ legislation globally, Kaneshiro’s work underscores the urgency of defending queer spaces—not only as physical enclaves but as acts of memory, care, and imagination. Centering Ni-Chōme as a living archive of resistance, the thesis calls for a planning practice grounded in cultural specificity, spatial justice, and queer futurity.