Re-appropriating the Grassland: Toward an Alternative Production of Nature for Changing Militarized Reality

Abstract

This article examines local peoples’ struggle against the U. S. and Japanese troops over the use of the Hijudai maneuver field by the Ground Self-Defense Force in Japan from the viewpoint of an “alternative production of nature,” which focuses on the potential of socially and materially produced nature to change the militarized reality of national security.

The rising imperative of national security has promoted the militarization of people’s lifeworlds world and paradoxically threatened their security. Such a militarization has caused various conflicts all over the world. For example, the recent transformation of the U. S. military has caused fierce struggles by local people against U. S. troops and bases in East Asia. In the maneuver field of Hijudai, the U. S. Marine Corps’ artillery live-fire exercises have been conducted since 1999 and local farmers and citizens’ group have been developing opposition movements.

First, the unique features of Hijudai are illustrated, that is, the coexistence of a pastureland and a maneuver field in the same place and a nature produced through interactive processes of grassland use by humans, grasses, and cattle. Second, the history of people’s struggle is described as processes of contestation between local people, governments, and NGOs over the significance of nature in the Hijudai area, where military use and local farmers’ livestock farming have collided. Lastly, it is disclosed that an alternative nature produced through the recent grassroots movement by local people has the potential to change militarized realities.