International Conference on Asian Studies: EFFORTS TO GENERATE A NEW WAVE OF OKINAWAN RESISTANCE (original) (raw)

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.'

Making Sense of Diasporic Okinawan Identity within US Global Militarisation

2015

1. About a year ago, I travelled to Washington DC as an interpreter with an Okinawan delegation that was making a direct appeal against plans by the US and Japanese governments to push ahead with construction of a new US Marine Air Station on the clear blue waters of Henoko. It felt like a quixotic mission as most of the US officials, think tanks, and politicians we met had made up their mind about new base construction at Henoko saying that it was the best plan for the US-Japan security arrangement and for the security of Pacific Asia. What the delegation was trying to get across to deaf ears was that Okinawans have stopped the construction for eighteen years by placing their bodies in front of ships and equipment coming to start construction. I recall vividly how Itokazu Keiko, the female leader of the delegation, looked straight in the eyes of male officials of Departments of Defense and State, saying that the delegation had come to personally appeal to the American sense of demo...

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.

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.

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.