The protests against Nike’s colonization of the park began after I’d left Tokyo in the later summer of 2008. The conflict recalled Miyashita Park’s long history as a site of protest, most recently in the 2003 demo-rave against the U.S. invasion of Iraq (Hayashi & McKnight, 2005). The park was occupied for nearly 6 months—from March to September 2010—as activists and the remaining homeless residents fought against the privatizing “Nikefication” of public space. The park, in part, was designed to attract skaters as a means to enclose their energies, perceived as a “nuisance” (see http://travel.cnn.com/tokyo/play/brawl-over-miyashita-park-shibuya-snares-nike-565070). The government ultimately seized the park and its enclosure was completed as Nike held the naming rights to the park. Those opposed to this corporate colonization of public space thought “the park’s ‘Nikefication’ would transform it into an ‘ad for Nike,’ into a place for consumers rather than citizens, and that entrance fees and evictions were inconsistent with the idea of ‘public gardens’ (the literal translation of koen, park)” (Cassegård 2011, 415).

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