Seminar Series: Abstract

Held Back by the Past? The (Dis)continuities of Japanese Social Movements: 1968-2008
Ando Takemasa - PAH Candidate

On 5 July 2008 just before the G8 summit was opened in Hokkaido, thousands of people joined a demonstration titled ‘Challenge the G8 summit’ in Sapporo. They came from various regions of Japan and the world in order to raise awareness of problems of G8 countries and their military, agricultural, environmental, labor, and development policies through rallies, demonstrations, public meetings, lobbying, cultural activities and the like

This seminar will introduce, first of all, these various actions by Japanese ‘global justice movements’ and their goals. Then I move to the argument about (dis)continuities of the movements from new left movements in the late 1960s and 1970s. New left movements, which were comprised mainly of anti-Vietnam War protesters, student activists, and radical young workers, left behind pos itive and negative legacies in the Japanese civil society. I argue how much those global justice movements of Japan are restrained by these legacies and how they are about to open new prospects in the period of globalization and neoliberalism