Abstract
What are the cultural and affective factors that sustain solidarity within Okinawa’s anti-US base community? The “Okinawa struggle,” which started in the late 1940s, is known for its persistence against militarism and military violence, in the context of Okinawa’s 70-year subordination to the US–Japan security pact. Foregoing research has tended to view the local protest movement as homogenous in ideology and identity, thereby passing over political activities which are not necessarily motivated or represented by the mainstream discourses of “Okinawa identity.” This chapter fills a gap in the existing research by focusing on the complex social, political, and cultural identities that animate the anti-helipad construction movement in Takae village, Northern Okinawa.
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Notes
- 1.
See, for example, Laure Hein and Mark Selden, eds. Islands of Discontent: Okinawa Responses to Japanese and American Power (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003).
- 2.
Some seminal ethnographic research in relation to the Okinawa’s anti-base struggle include Masamichi S. Inoue, Okinawa and the U.S. Military: Identity Making in the Age of Globalization (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), and Miyume Tanji, Myth, Protest and Struggle in Okinawa (New York; London: Routledge, 2009).
- 3.
Gurminder K. Bhambra, Rethinking Modernity: Postcolonialism and the Sociological Imagination (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 30.
- 4.
Bhambra, Rethinking Modernity, 31.
- 5.
Higashi-son-shi Henshū Iinkai, eds. Higashi-son-shi, Vol. 1 (Higashi-son: Higashi-son Yakuba, 1987), 212.
- 6.
Chuji Chinen, Taiga No Nagare to Tomoni (Minamihaebaru: Akebono Shuppan, 2008).
- 7.
Gavan McCormack and Satoko Oka Norimatsu, Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012), 167–168.
- 8.
Okinawa Defense Bureau is a regional division under the Japanese Ministry of Defense, which is in charge of providing facilities to the local US military including preparation of the helipad construction.
- 9.
Kosuzu Abe, “Kurikaeshi Kawaru: Okinawa ni okeru Chokusetu Kōdō no Genzai Shinkōkei,” Seisaku Kagaku, Kokusai-kankeironshu, Vol. 13 (2011), 61–90.
- 10.
For example, around the time when Takae’s protest movement was formed, a music festival called “Yanbaru Peace Music Festival in Takae” was organized in 2006.
- 11.
The official blog of the Takae Residents’ Society is: http://takae.ti-da.net/. The latest information of Takae and its anti-base movement are updated on this blog. Also, other advertisements for local cultural events are provided through this blog.
- 12.
The Takae Residents’ Society, “Voice of Takae,” 4.
- 13.
Arturo Escobar, “Culture Sits in Places: Reflections on Globalism and Subaltern Strategies of Localization,” Political Geography 20 (2001), 143.
- 14.
Interview with Ashimine Gentsu, January 28, 2012.
- 15.
Fukuoka Masanobu (1913–2008) is one of the earliest advocates of “natural farming,” a type of organic farming method. Fukuoka’s natural farming is characterized by four principles, which are “no cultivation of farmland,” “no fertilization,” “no pesticide,” and “no weeding.” One of the main inventions of Fukuoka is a ball of soil mixed with various different types of seeds and clay called nendo bōru or seed ball. In fact, this seed ball contains a small amount of non-chemical fertilizer. He planted this ball in designated areas and let some of the seeds grow. As his farming method relies largely on the power of the soil and minimum human intervention, it was called natural farming to distinguish it from other organic farming methods. Fukuoka’s seed ball was later adopted in various countries to restore natural environment in deforested areas.
- 16.
Interview with Morioka Kōji, January 28, 2012.
- 17.
Interview with Takahashi Masahiro, January 28, 2012.
- 18.
Abe “Kurikaeshi Kawaru: Okinawa ni okeru Chokusetu Kōdō no Genzai Shinkōkei” (2011).
- 19.
According to the official history of the village, Higashi Village experienced mass mobility of people several times. The first mass settlement of people in this region occurred in the nineteenth century. After the Ryūkyū Disposal, the warriors who did not own their lands moved to Yanbaru to develop the area. This movement was encouraged by Okinawa Prefecture from the 1890s until the early twentieth century. Having an intention to increase the population of the region, the Okinawa government provided financial support for those who moved to the northern part of the island. These early settlers were mostly engaged in the forestry industry. The second mass movement of people to Yanbaru region occurred during the Battle of Okinawa. They were refugees who fled to the northern Yanbaru from south and central parts of Okinawa such as Naha and Yomitan Village. The exact number is still uncertain. However, the local official history introduced an account by a war survivor who considered that nearly 100,000 people came from the South. During the final stages of the war, most of these refugees and the local residents were kept in the camps such as Taira by the Allied Powers. However, there were a number of people who experienced the end of the war in the forest.
- 20.
Taku Morizumi and Chie Mikami, Okinawa Takae Yanbaru de Ikiru (Tokyo: Kōbunken, 2014), 127–128.
- 21.
Masamichi S. Inoue, “’We Are Okinawans but of Different Kind’: New/Old Social Movements and the U.S. Military in Okinawa,” Current Anthropology 45(1), 85–104.
- 22.
Kosuzu Abe, “Kurikaeshi Kawaru: Okinawa ni okeru Chokusetu Kōdō no Genzai Shinkōkei” (2011), 68.
- 23.
Abe, “Kurikaeshi Kawaru,” 80–90.
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Takahashi, S. (2018). Forest, Music, and Farming: The Takae Anti-Helipad Movement and Everyday Life as Political Space. In: Cliff, T., Morris-Suzuki, T., Wei, S. (eds) The Living Politics of Self-Help Movements in East Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6337-4_7
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