Publisher's Synopsis
This book looks at the emergence of internationally linked Japanese nongovernmental advocacy networks that have grown rapidly since the 1990s in the context of three conjunctural forces: neoliberalism, militarism, and nationalism. It connects three disparate literatures-on the global justice movement, on Japanese civil society, and on global citizenship education. Through the narratives of fifty activists in eight overlapping issue areas-global governance, labor, food sovereignty, peace, HIV/AIDS, gender, minority and human rights, and youth-Another Japan is Possible examines the genesis of these new social movements; their critiques of neoliberalism, militarism, and nationalism; their local, regional, and global connections; their relationships with the Japanese government; and their role in constructing a new identity of the Japanese as global citizens. Its purpose is to highlight the interactions between the global and the local-that is, how international human rights and global governance issues resonate within Japan and how, in turn, local alternatives are articulated by Japanese advocacy groups-and to analyze citizenship from a postnational and postmodern perspective.
