Temple Law School/ICAS Joint Lecture: #vivalarevolucíon: New Millennium Political Protests Slides for: David Slater Speakers: David H. Slater, Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Japanese Studies and Director of the Institute of Comparative Culture, Sophia University John Russell, Professor of Anthropology, Gifu University William Andrews, writer and translator. Sarajean Rossitto, Nonprofit NGO Consultant Moderator: Tina Saunders, Director and Associate Professor of Instruction in Law, Temple University School of Law, Japan Campus ICAS public lecture series videos are posted on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAA67B040B82B8AEF

1. Social Engagement and Protest
For example, SEALDs
Making Politics Regular and Cool
David H. Slater
Sophia University

2. Voices from Tohoku: Oral History Archive
Volunteer into disaster research to social movementsVolunteer into disaster research to social movementsVolunteer into disaster research to social movementsVolunteer into disaster research to social movements
tohokukaranokoe.orgtohokukaranokoe.orgtohokukaranokoe.orgtohokukaranokoe.org
Cultural Anthropologist
Ethnographer
Post-disaster Tohoku
Fukushima Activism
Anti-nuke movements
Anti-war and anti-Abe
protests (SEALDs)

3. Protest and Political Engagement
What does it take to be political? To protest?
• Legal protections to right to protest not enough
• “Freedom of assembly and association as well as speech, press and all other
forms of expression are guaranteed.” (Article 21, Constitution of Japan)
• Grievance not really enough
• Labor, environment, military, treaties
• What do you need to have?
1. Denaturalization of state power and capital legitimation
2. Destigmatization of protest
3. Some sense of identification with protest groups
4. Some mechanism for assemblage, info flow, connection

4. 4. Social Media as instrumentalinstrumentalinstrumentalinstrumental in relief
constitutiveconstitutiveconstitutiveconstitutive of social ties, civil society, politics
• Social Media, Information and Political Activism in Japan’s 3.11 Crisis
• 日日日日本の３・１１危機における一般社会メディア、情報、政治運本の３・１１危機における一般社会メディア、情報、政治運本の３・１１危機における一般社会メディア、情報、政治運本の３・１１危機における一般社会メディア、情報、政治運動動動動
• Love Kindstrand and Keiko Nishimura
• Japan Focus: The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 10, Issue 24, No 1, June 11, 2012

5. 2. Destigmatization of protest
• Protest is always, by definition, irregular, out of the ordinary
• Signals break down of efficacy or confidence through regular channels
• Always relational, relative to our everyday notions of acceptable
behavior
• But what is protest? What kind of people protest? What are
legitimate ends and means for protests?
• The “Ghosts of ANPO”

14. Fleeing from historical legacy of protest
• This history is not well-know, even
by protestors; different pics
• Exists in ghostly images
• Images of violent disruption; anti-
social and against society itself;
• Protestors as selfish, destructive,
immature, brainwashed
• Protests as senseless, ineffective,
dark, dangerous
• Postwar protests almost always
compared to anti-ANPO protests

15. Activists and authorities aware of these ghosts
• Fukushima, to protest is うるさい、わがまま, 神経質 (shinkesihitsu)
hysterical
• Tepco representative: “We are ok as long as we can paint the protests as
ideological, but if they start to be seen are ‘regular moms,’ we’re in
trouble.”
• ‘Active’ people distance themselves from “radicalism”
• 運動家、活動家、activist—maybe supporter?
• Retreat from politics itself: I’m not political, I’m just a regular XXXX”
• Renunciation of the “political” as a precondition for getting politically
engaged.

16. Shifts with anti-nuke demos from Fukushima
Full of “regular” (普通) people
*Diversity and heterogeneity of
protestors: farmers, moms
*Difficult to attribute political
motive or selfish advantage
*De-stigmatization of protest
Mostly mass media
Making the act of protesting not
irregular, strange, dangerous
But still, not for students…

17. Tokyo, a bit different; Oji-san, rough and
radicals or “pro-shimin” (still no students)
首都圏反原発連合
-Metropolitan Coalition
Against Nukes-

18. SEALDs positions
• SASPL (Students Against the Secrecy Protection Law)
• Spring 2013: Meiji Gakuen, ICU; organized demo and study sessions
• Legislation passed Dec. 10, 2014; dissolution and reconstitution
• SEALDs (Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy)
• Against US/Japan Security Treaty; anti-war, Henoko
• For Constitutional Protection, but not against reforms per se
• But must follow constitutional procedure; not “reinterpretation” of Article 9
• Leaders must act in accordance with popular consent, democracy
• “Liberal”? Certainly not radical reform:
• Not like freeter protest; not like Zengakuren
• Restoration of postwar position, a reclaiming of the center
• If SEALDs looks radical today, more a reflection of how far right Abe has shifted
• But less about policy than process—finding a voice and place for youth

19. Protest, protesters, for regular college kids
• Gone is the violence, rough edges, anger, dark, extreme radicalism
• Addresses the image problem; making politics related to everyday life

20. Regular but also cool
Politics of style
• かっこいい、of good form, cool
• ダサい uncool
• Dress, posture, expression,
in production value
Marker of membership
“to the barricades in designer gear”
• “おしゃれ politics;” critique left and
right
• No so different from school clothes
• but different from what we expect of
“activists”

21. The styling of political activism
•Imagine an inverse ratio between
political substance and style?
•No social movements exist w/o style
•Style is the visual language of politics

22. Halo Effect; using SEALDs as cover for their own activism
Networks, not “chapters” or “cells”, but opportunistic
links with autonomous groups
【巣鴨！】オールズ
（OLDs）とミドルズ
（MIDDLEs）が８月８日
（土）巣鴨駅北口で「戦争
法案ノー・安倍政権ノー」
訴え

23. SEALDs achievements
•Cool Regularity enables identification and creates
networks
• reaching out to other groups
• Focus on Abe personal as point of agreement among wide
range of groups
• Distance from more “extreme” groups
• You can be political without being extreme
• Does not disrupt categories; maybe reinforce them

24. Preliminary take-aways
• In Japan today, place for mainstream, not radical, opposition
• Similar to the environmental movements of the 80’s and 90’s
• A way of working within the system; against parties (Abe), not the system
• Taking back the political center (that has shifted so far to the right)
• Cultural Politics
• Must be part of everyday life—not a separate, fetishized domain
• Today, everyday life is saturated with consumer culture—this has to be a
resource if politics is to be popular with some scope
• As researchers, maybe we need to shift our focus from glorifying the
small gestures of pure (elite) radicalism, see a politics of mass

25. Background articles
SEALDs (Students Emergency Action for Liberal
Democracy): Research Note on Contemporary
Youth Politics in Japan
David H. Slater, Robin O'Day, Satsuki Uno, Love Kindstrand,
Chiharu Takano,
The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 13, Issue. 37, No. 1, September 14, 2015
Differentiating SEALDs from Freeters, and
Precariats: the politics of youth movements
Robin O’Day
The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 13, Issue. 37, No. 2, September 14, 2015

26. Historical Revisionism?
• What is ANPO is not other but as precursor?
• Political past as resource, rather than ghost
• Resuscitate ANPO for today’s Japan
• National focus--国民, demo space
• Lost of historical edgework required
• Close and detailed historical re-analysis
• Review of right discourse, representations
• Quite ambitious