Review of Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States, by G. McCormack and Norimatsu (original) (raw)
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EFFORTS TO GENERATE A NEW WAVE OF OKINAWAN RESISTANCE
8th International Conference on Asian Studies, 2019
EFFORTS TO GENERATE A NEW WAVE OF OKINAWAN RESISTANCE Since World War II the United States' military, political, and economic influence have remained relatively unchallenged in the Indo-Pacific arena. For decade's Japan and the Japanese island prefecture of Okinawa has hosted tens of thousands of U.S. personnel as part of forward deployed deterrent strategy able to respond to an entire continuum of challenges. Despite the ever-emerging threats in both capacity and capability, the Indo-Pacific area has become the new geopolitical fault line in the battle for regional hegemony. Stuck in the shadows is an interactive struggle for identity, power, and relevance. This effort can be observed firsthand on the Japanese island prefecture of Okinawa, were an enduring Okinawan resistance attempts to generate results and invigorate relevance against current Japanese and American pol-military efforts along a fragile and dynamic fault line of both resolve and influence. This exploratory study examines not only the current securitization and spectrum of current Okinawan resistance efforts that attempt to blunt Japanese and American securitization and posturing on the island, but also the cultivation and synchronization of these efforts meant to specifically mature and advance a unique localized 'identity' and 'burden.'
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International Conference on Asian Studies: EFFORTS TO GENERATE A NEW WAVE OF OKINAWAN RESISTANCE
International Conference on Asian Studies, 2019
EFFORTS TO GENERATE A NEW WAVE OF OKINAWAN RESISTANCE Since World War II the United States' military, political, and economic influence have remained relatively unchallenged in the Indo-Pacific arena. For decade's Japan and the Japanese island prefecture of Okinawa has hosted tens of thousands of U.S. personnel as part of forward deployed deterrent strategy able to respond to an entire continuum of challenges. Despite the ever-emerging threats in both capacity and capability, the Indo-Pacific area has become the new geopolitical fault line in the battle for regional hegemony. Stuck in the shadows is an interactive struggle for identity, power, and relevance. This effort can be observed firsthand on the Japanese island prefecture of Okinawa, were an enduring Okinawan resistance attempts to generate results and invigorate relevance against current Japanese and American pol-military efforts along a fragile and dynamic fault line of both resolve and influence. This exploratory study examines not only the current securitization and spectrum of current Okinawan resistance efforts that attempt to blunt Japanese and American securitization and posturing on the island, but also the cultivation and synchronization of these efforts meant to specifically mature and advance a unique localized 'identity' and 'burden.'
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Chapter 16 The Endless Postwar: Okinawa at the Modern Frontier
Reconsidering Postwar Japanese History: A Handbook , 2023
Alone among Japan's prefectures, Okinawa experienced a 27-year-long military occupation that fundamentally altered its history, and created a distinctive local politics, culture and economy that continue to speak to larger national and global issues. This chapter explores the contingencies that led to Okinawa's wartime and postwar militarization, and the ways Okinawans have actively challenged American and Japanese efforts to control their postwar narrative. Despite persistent grievances regarding a fragile local economy and continued heavy US military base burden, Okinawans have promoted new visions emphasizing the themes of peace and transnational cooperation that meaningfully connect their past to their future.
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Imperial Periphery and National Politics: Trajectory of Opposition Movements in Okinawa
The mainstream study of " national politics " figures out weak and minor nations incline to move either radically or ethnicity-center as repressed by immigrant powers. Nevertheless, sub-national politics in Okinawa, also experienced long-term colonization by metropolitan Japan, delivers alternative path toward progressive movements. By comparative historical research, Okinawa sub-national politics evolves through reproduction mechanisms, eventually leads to the progressive turn to connect with international advocacy community. Since World War II, nationalist rivalry in East Asia continues to make security dilemma entrenched. Under American imperium, conservative perspective of Japanese national politics is consolidated. Okinawa's unanticipated progressive turn of national politics implicates new light for East Asian nations to reconcile by progressive dialogue.
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Nationalism in Okinawa:Futenma and the future of base politics
2016
Extant scholarship has primarily tackled the MCAS Futenma base relocation case on Okinawa from specific scientific and economic disciplines, such as International Relations (IR) and Policymaking Studies. This paper, however. provides new research into the relationship between nationalism and localism, offering an original perspective that explains the combined interactive influences affecting the key issues. These include: the constraints and opportunities of the international system, the rhetoric used by political, commercial and societal stakeholders involved in policy direction, and the societal norms that embed shifting national and local interests into the policymaking process. Concretely, it explicates to what extent intersecting key actors disputing the Futenma relocation issue on Okinawa adhere to Japan's national norms of (US_allied) bilateralism, (anti)militarism and developmentalism - and how policy is shaped in accordance with such. The research findings offer a deep...
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Two decades after the main islands of Japan regained full sovereignty, Okinawa was added as a new prefecture to the Japanese state. Yet, the ecological, economic and social consequences of the persistent U.S. military presence on the islands to this day have a significant impact on the everyday life of Okinawans, and at many points in Okinawa’s post-war history they sparked sweeping citizens’ protests. This paper studies the citizens’ movement ahead of the reversion of 1972. While marginal in terms of resources, the movement spread and prevailed through innovative strategies of contentious action and based on its strong movement identity, which was framed along a joint historical consciousness of the activists. Taking an Okinawan perspective, this paper discusses why a reversion movement emerged in the first place. Furthermore, which images of this new nation “Japan with Okinawa” were created and represented, and why were they appealing to the people? The milestones of the reversion movement will be examined against the backdrop of an – as will be argued – ultimately failed process of nation building that continues to haunt Okinawa-Japan and Japan-US relations to this day. This study draws on a qualitative content analysis of scholarly works on the issue, historic and recent media coverage, as well as writings by contemporary witnesses in autobiographical and literary genres. In addition to Benedict Anderson’s concept of imagined communities Sidney Tarrow’s take on social movement activism and Peter Katzenstein’s model of norm building in politics provide the analytical basis for this paper.
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Beyond Empire: Okinawa and the politics of American Military bases in Japan
Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences, 2024
How can writing differently help avert denial of agency without sacrificing critique? It is common for critical ir scholarship to construe American bases across the world as legacies of U.S. imperialism. These interventions have facilitated deeper understandings of the asymmetrical relationship between US and its allies, and the impact of military base hosting to ordinary people’s lives. However, their tendency to vilify empire has reproduced US as the main agent of military base politics and framed the host’s agency in terms of active subordination and dependence to the West. In this article, I use an reflexive writing strategy to demonstrate how mainland Japanese and Okinawans have transformed bases into sites of struggles through which they push policy agenda that move beyond being prisoners of American empire.
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