Welcome to the Sacrifice Zone(s): Fear and Militarism in Okinawa (Fear Research Network Seminar Series / East Asian Studies Seminar Series)
| Dates: | 5 December 2024 |
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| Times: | 16:30 - 16:30 |
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| What is it: | Lecture |
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| Organiser: | School of Arts, Languages and Cultures |
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| Who is it for: | External researchers, Adults, Alumni, Current University students, General public |
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American and increasingly Japanese militarism is an ever-present feature of people’s daily lives in Japan’s southernmost prefecture, Okinawa. Being located closer to Taiwan than to Tokyo, these islands have been of strategic importance for the US presence in East Asia since the end of the Pacific War. With the People’s Republic of China’s increasing economic and military power and a potential conflict with Taiwan on the rise, the Japanese and American governments have continuously emphasised the necessity for Okinawa’s military installations. However, this omnipresent militarism comes with severe problems: noise pollution by military airplanes and helicopters, accidents such as helicopter and V-22 Osprey crashes, high numbers of sexual and gender-based violence by military personnel against civilians, toxic spills, ground water contamination, and environmental degradation.
Being trapped between the negative side effects of a militarism that is supposed to stabilize the region on the one hand and fear of a potential large-scale conflict on the other hand, this talk will try to explore different aspects of Okinawan’s life adjacent to military sacrifice zones. How do people in Okinawa experience the increasing tension in the region? How do different actors try to influence the discourse around justification of military presence? How do Okinawan’s conceptualise and navigate this landscape of fear?
Speaker Biography:
Marius Palz got his B.A. from Tübingen University and his M.A. from the University of Halle-Wittenberg, Germany, both in Social Anthropology and Japanese Studies. Since his early studies he tried to combine his regional focus on Japan with anthropological theory and methodology, and conducted small-scale fieldwork in Kyoto, Tokyo, and Hokkaido. Especially his M.A. research among the Ainu community of Tokyo got him interested in minority-state relations. He accomplished his PhD at the University of Oslo in 2023 conducting field-based research on the cultural meaning of the critically endangered dugongs of Okinawa. His research interest lies at the intersection of more-than-human ethnography, (post-)colonialism, and indigeneity in the Anthropocene.
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