Dynamics of Problematizing “Okinawa”:

The Network of Resident's Anti-Environmental Pollution Movements and the Kin Bay Struggle

Abstract

This paper focuses on the Jishukouza (Autonomous Lectures) movement initiated by Jun Ui (1932-2006), a tremendous Japanese chemist and activist; it analyzes the meanings and dynamic of their activities on Okinawa creating linkages among the residents' anti-environmental pollution movements in Japan, Okinawa, and other Asian countries. The questions in this paper are how the “Okinawa Problem” (Okinawa-mondai) is constructed among activist networks and how the people encountered Okinawa in the 1970s after its reversion to Japan.

Okinawan society after the reversion had specific characteristics, such as accelerating development through the Plan for Promotion and Development of Okinawa by the Japanese government, evading military-base issues in national politics, and decreasing public interest in Okinawa. However, anti-environmental pollution movements on the mainland of Japan had continued their activities on Okinawa, especially the Kin Bay Struggle, and made important criticisms of development programs led by the Japanese government and capitalism. Development programs came in for severe criticism based on the historical experiences of pollution (kougai) on the Japanese mainland between the 1950s and 1960s. Activists of Jishukouza tried to understand the “Okinawa Problem” in terms of socio-economic pain and oppression involving development in both Japan and Okinawa instead of placing them in a dichotomous framework. This paper proves that the network of social movements in 1970s created a new way of understanding about Okinawa.