8 September 2006 - Masashi Iwasa

Pacific Asia Cultural Studies Forum presents:

Time:5-7pm,
8 September 2006
Venue: 137a Main Building, Goldsmiths College (a.k.a. Richard HoggartBuilding)

Speaker: Masashi Iwasa (Research Fellow in Sociology at Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan)

Title:“Social movements in an age of cultural complexity: the case of anti-US base movements in Okinawa”

Abstract: Anti-US base movements have been active for decades in Okinawa, the southernmost island area in Japan. Discussion on them, either in sociology and cultural studies, have tended to take a certain collectivity of Okinawans almost as given, framing the movements as a matter of their collective engagements. However, the expanded opportunities for non-Okinawans to get involved with the movements in recent years remind us that communication processes among different participants of them need more careful understanding than the “collective identity” paradigm would assume. In other words, we need to pay closer attention to experiences and knowledge of each individual in the movements, who thereby seek to find their own meanings in them. The findings from my specific research will have major implications for the way a research on social movements ingeneral should be conducted in an age of cultural complexity.

Keywords: cultural complexity; social movements; individual; knowledge; experience
.