Meeting of the dugongs and the cooking pots: anti-military base citizens' groups on Okinawa

Abstract

This paper documents six anti-military base citizens' groups on Okinawa, Japan to demonstrate the existence of an anti-military base social movement on Okinawa. The author contends that three ‘incidents’ involving the US military on Okinawa—the 1995 Kin Town rape, the 1997 Nago City Heliport transfer proposal, and the 2001 Chatan Town rape—have solidified the groups into a social movement. This has occurred with the incorporation of broader perspectives into the anti-military base campaign including environmentalism, feminism, and anti-militarism. The author concludes that comparison of the Okinawan anti-base social movement with other social movements and the application of social movement theory to the Okinawan example will facilitate theorising about the future direction of the Okinawan anti-military base social movement.