Okinawa, 1945–1952: Allegories of Becoming

Alegal ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 38-64
Author(s):  
Annmaria M. Shimabuku
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Sexual Politics ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Comfort Women ◽  
Symbolic Structure ◽  
The U.S

Chapter 2 gives a brief biopolitical prehistory to Okinawa. From the perspective of economic development, it was not treated like a national or colonial territory by the Japanese state, but ambiguously suspended in between both. This foregrounded the sexual politics surrounding the U.S. military in Okinawa because unlike mainland Japan, there was no development of a middle class equipped to reject the formation of a sex industry in base towns on the basis of an established ethno-nationalism. Hence, in contrast to the symbolic structure of Japanism presented in Chapter 1, this chapter positions Okinawa’s alegality in terms of Benjamin’s notion of allegory, or that which constantly fails communion with a totality. It argues that debates surrounding the establishment of a sex industry were driven by the sheer fear of exclusion from the biopolitical order, not by an identification with it, and were subsequently absent of discourses lamenting the racial contamination of the population. It traces the omnipresence of this fear through the Okinawan reception of so-called “comfort women” during the war, the experience of sexual violence and exploitation in the immediate postwar, and the formation of the sex industry after the “reverse course” of occupation in 1949.

Introduction

Alegal ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Annmaria M. Shimabuku
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Sexual Contact ◽  
Global Network ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
Traditional Area ◽  
The U.S

The Introduction defines the alegal in terms of Schmitt’s concept of sovereignty and Foucauldian biopolitics. It shows how this positioning is integral to dislodging Okinawa from the traditional area studies paradigm and instead uses it to theorize the formation of a new postwar global network of sovereignty between the U.S. and Japan. In particular, it foregrounds the biopolitical dimensions of this network in which Japanese politicians protested violation of Japanese sovereignty by the U.S. military symbolically through the trope of sexual violence. Concerned with the ability to secure Japan as an economic partner, the U.S. responded by reducing its military presence in the mainland and transferring troops to Okinawa in the late 1950s. It sensed a deeply-entrenched cultural aversion to sexual contact around the bases, which, this book argues, was abhorred because it interfered with the formation of a Japanese middle class. By revisiting the writings of Japanese Marxists such as Uno Kōzō and Tosaka Jun, the Introduction defines the contours of a biopolitical state concerned with developing a Japanese middle class along the norms of patriarchal monoethnicity. It is this kind of state from which Okinawa was excluded, and to this state which it ambivalently sought to return.

Another Front, Another War

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chaity Das
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Work Done

This chapter marks the gendered division of memoirs and testimonies that have been attempted in this book. This is based on the assumption that women and men experienced the war differently and found themselves in different situations and roles. When they become the author of their own stories, the gendered nature of war itself becomes clear. While memoirs are written by middle class women, testimonials are more diverse. This chapter also studies in detail the work done on victims of wartime rape (birangonas), custodial torture, and sexual violence in Bangladesh. Worls of authors such as Jahanara Imam and Guhathakurta are examined. While certain aspects are problematized, the chapter ends with the testimony of Firdausi Priyobhashini taken and translated by the author herself, pointing towards what is meant when one talks of the unfinished and unquiet commemorations of 1971.

The U.S. Marine Corps’ Response to Intimate Partner Sexual Violence: An Analysis of the Family Advocacy Program and the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program

2020 ◽  
pp. 0095327X2097439
Author(s):  
Stephanie Bonnes ◽  
Jeffrey H. Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Marine Corps ◽  
Intimate Partner ◽  
Sexual Assault Prevention ◽  
Family Advocacy ◽  
Advocacy Program ◽  
Assault Prevention ◽  
The U.S

In this article, we show how the U.S. military treats domestic violence and sexual assault as distinct forms of abuse, which has particular consequences for victims of intimate partner sexual violence. We explore how a specific U.S. military branch, the Marine Corps, complicates these issues further by providing services to intimate partner sexual violence victims from two different programs. Analyzing military orders and documents related to Family Advocacy Program and Sexual Assault Prevention and Response program, interviews with eight military prosecutors, and the experiences of one military lawyer, we examine program and interactional-level factors that shape victim services, advocacy, and processes. We find that there are program differences in specialized services, coordinated services, and potential breaches of confidentiality related to victim’s cases. We recommend that the Marine Corps recognize the intersections of sexual violence and domestic violence and offer more tailored services to victims of intimate partner sexual violence.

scholarly journals Victim and Perpetrator Characteristics in Alcohol/Drug-Involved Sexual Violence Victimization in the U.S

2021 ◽  
pp. 108839
Author(s):  
Kathleen C. Basile ◽  
Sharon G. Smith ◽  
Yang Liu ◽  
Ashley Lowe ◽  
Amanda K. Gilmore ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Violence Victimization ◽  
The U.S

Reframing Solidarity: Company Magazine as Family Album

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-67
Author(s):  
Courtney Maloney
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Labor Unions ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Cultural Dimension ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Standards Of Living ◽  
Concomitant Reduction ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The U.S

We are witnessing a time of shrinking labor unions across the globe. Among member states of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, rates of union membership have declined from 30% in 1985 to 20% today (McCarthy 2017). In the U.S., the current rate is just 10.7% (Yadoo 2018). We have seen along with this the concomitant reduction in working-class and middle-class standards of living. Technological, political, and economic factors have impacted this change, but there is a cultural dimension to it as well. From the moment industrial unions in the U.S. gained power, corporations began to counter workingclass solidarity with alternative narratives that emphasized individualism, domesticity, and leisure. This article illuminates such efforts with a reading of one particularly sophisticated example from the mid-twentieth century, in which a steel corporation’s company magazine used workers’ own participation and self-representations in an effort to reorient notions of solidarity toward an identification with the corporation as family.

scholarly journals Maritime unions and the U.S. merchant marine

1999 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 16-24
Author(s):  
Richard L Clarke
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Labor Unions ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Union Wage ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Historical Role ◽  
The U.S

U.S. maritime unions have played a vital historical role in both the defense and the economic development of the United States. The economic and the political forces that helped shape and promote the growth of U.S. seafaring labor unions changed dramatically in the 1990s. Maritime union membership in the United States has fallen by more than 80 per cent since 1950. Inflexible union work rules and high union wage scales have contributed to this decline. Recent regulatory and industry changes require a new union approach if U. S. maritime unions are to survive the next decade.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document