The Translocal Island of Okinawa - (Soas Studies in Modern and Contemporary Japan) by Shinnosuke Takahashi (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The Translocal Island of Okinawareveals the underrepresented memories, visions and actions that are involved in the making of Okinawan resistance against its subordinated status under the US-Japan security system beyond the narrowly defined political, cultural and geographical borders of locality. As Okinawa's base politics is a problem deeply rooted in the context of East Asia, so is the history of the people's protest movement. The issue examined in this book is the arbitrary distinction of scale between 'local', which tends to be employed for a particular territory demarcated by a cohesive culture, and 'regional', a larger area that consists of myriad localities.

Locality, Shinnosuke Takahashi here argues, is neither self-evident, fixed nor homogenous but is established through historical processes that involve interaction, conflict and negotiation of individuals and communities across territorial and cultural boundaries. This book reveals the novel concept of Okinawa as a translocal island which offers a way to understand locality in the context of Okinawan activism as a product of multiple cultural and human flows, as opposed to the conventional way of framing the local community as fixed, internally cohesive and rigidly bordered. It makes an exciting contribution to the field of modern Japanese and East Asian studies by stimulating discussions on the richness and scale of local civic activism that is increasingly becoming a key political feature of the East Asian region.

Review Quotes

A tour-de-force into the manifold trajectories of grassroots activism based on the postwar imagination and history of the Ryukyu Arc, from Amami through Okinawa to Jeju, Taiwan, and Luzon, The Translocal Island of Okinawa explains the hearts and minds of transborder thinkers and movements in the region and rekindles the inter-Asia spirit of solidarity and resistance.
Chih-Ming Wang, Research Fellow, Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica, Taiwan

Okinawa paid a heavy price for the Pacific War and for Japan's long peace after the war. Now the island takes up a vital place for East Asia's genuinely peaceable future. Takahashi tells of the islanders' struggle for this future and how in this struggle the love of the place and the ethos of grassroots internationalism come together. A remarkable achievement.
Heonik Kwon, Professor, University of Cambridge, UK

The Okinawan archipelago plays a crucial role in today's rapidly changing Asia Pacific region, yet its history and contemporary significance remain insufficiently reported, debated and understood in the English-speaking world. The Translocal Island of Okinawa sheds crucial new light on Okinawan history, society and politics, and on the long struggle of Okinawan residents to protect the peace and the unique environment of their archipelago. This book also goes further, presenting an innovative perspective on the formation of identity and solidarity in grassroots movements across regional and national boundaries. Its analysis of Okinawan translocalism will be of great value to scholars of citizens' activism around the world.
Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Professor Emerita, Australian National University, Australia

About the Author

Shinnosuke Takahashi is Lecturer in Japanese Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He is the co-editor of Transpacific Visions: Connected Histories of the Pacific across North and South (2021) and Transnational Japan as History (2015).