What is Okinawa for Sociologists?

Abstract

Okinawa, a prefecture located in the far southeast of Japan, presents two remarkable features for sociological community studies, without which this study would be superficial. The first is the fact that Okinawa was an independent country until 1889, and many residents still harbor political distrust of mainland Japan. This feeling, shared by local community members, may be connected with the recent anti-U.S. military base movement.

The second is the phenomenon of the extensive literature on the culture of this southern island, particularly by the famous folklorist, Kunio Yanagita. This strand of folklore studies considers Okinawa to be the original cultural homeland of Japan, supported by extensive field research into its music, dancing, beliefs, and folktales. Such research never considers the historico-political issues, such as the fact that Okinawa was an independent country and governed by the United States after the Second World War.

Critically, this narrow scholarly focus indicates the tendency of sociologists of Okinawan community studies to avoid tackling these two features, and instead to conduct research aligned with the current sociological topics of concern. The result is a narrowing of scholarly possibility and creativity, and a loss of perspective on the lived reality of locals, which leads Okinawans to believe that sociology is useless. However, recently, we have begun to find evidence of young sociologists trying to empathize with the locals and to discover the Okinawan community issues by incorporating a consideration of local political and cultural histories.