Against Japanism
VitenskapSamfunnHistorieThis podcast seeks to challenge the commonly held assumptions about Japan as harmonious, homogeneous, and traditional by recasting its history as a history of conflict and change, as the history of class struggles, from anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, and intersectional perspectives.
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- Remembering Kazuo Ishikawa and the Sayama Incident w/ Miho Kim (01:25:44)
Miho Kim joins the show to discuss the life of Kazuo Ishikawa, the Japanese criminal (in)justice system, and the Buraku Liberation Movement. Kazuo was a man of the outcaste Buraku origin who was falsely accused of murdering a female high school student in 1963 when he was 24, a case known as the Sayama Incident. Following Kazuo’s arrest, the police lied to him and pressured him to confess to a crime he did not commit. As a result, the prosecutors sentenced him to death and then to a com...
- Happyend w/ Neo Sora (01:44:59)
This episode contains spoilers of Happyend. Neo Sora joins the show to discuss filmmaking and radical politics. Neo is a Japanese-American filmmaker and Palestine solidarity activist based in Tokyo. His latest film Happyend was premiered at last year's Venice International Film Festive and Toronto International Film Festival, and is currently showing in theaters across Japan (The film is expected to hit theatres outside of Japan in 2025. Look out for screenings in your area such as this one i...
- Attack on Titan: An Imperialist Propaganda w/ Kazuma Hashimoto (01:22:23)
This episode contains spoilers of the Attack on Titan series. Kazuma Hashimoto returns to the show to discuss Attack on Titan, a popular manga and anime series created by Hajime Isayama. This is the first installment of a mini-series on art and politics, where we will critically analyze the role of art in promoting Japanese imperialism and how we can revolutionize art in service of the people. Kazuma is a media critic, translator, and journalist. He authored many articles including “Attack...
- Vietnamese Migrant Workers and the Legacy of "Technical Internship" Program w/ Le Phuong Anh (01:27:40)
Maya and Kota sit down with Le Phuong Anh to talk about the struggle of Vietnamese migrant workers and international students in Japan. Anh is a PhD student at the graduate school of Asia Pacific Studies at Waseda University, whose research interest is in Migration Studies and international student mobility, as well as Vietnamese middle skill migrant workers in Japan. She is the co-author of Against the ‘Japanese Dream’: Vietnamese Student Workers in Japan published in Asian Labour Rev...
- Multipolarity or Anti-Imperialism? w/ Politics in Command (01:33:10)
Kota sits down with J from Politics in Command to discuss "multipolarity," a discourse which sees the existence of multiple superpowers as a positive development from the unipolar world dominated by the United States. We ask whether the politics of multipolarity is genuinely anti-imperialist or revisionist, an abandonment of revolutionary principles for reformism and class collaborationism. We critically analyze the overlaps between the reactionary ideology of Aleksandr Dugin and...
- Danchi, Social Reproduction, and the Politics of Urban Development w/ Marxist Disco (01:57:37)
Felix a.k.a. Marxist Disco joins the show to discuss the wave of urban redevelopment happening in Japan right now. There are more than 200 buildings planned just in the Tokyo area including Japan’s tallest skyscraper on record, despite the chronic recession and stagnant growth rate the country has been experiencing since the 1990s. To make sense of this contradiction, we critically engage with Marxist geographer David Harvey’s work, particularly his theory of "spatial fix," and of the urban ...
- The Takarazuka Revue and Capitalist Urban Development w/ The BeruBara Tag Boom (01:32:14)
Alex from the BeruBara Tag Boom joins the show to discuss the history and politics of an all-women musical theater based in Western Japan known as the Takarazuka Revue. We discuss the class politics of the Takarazuka Revue, particularly its ties to an Osaka-based private railway corporation called the Hankyu Corporation (now a subsidiary of the Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group), the development of railway infrastructure and the suburbanization of Osaka in the early twentieth century that crea...
- The History of Japanese Fascism: Part 1 w/ The Minyan (01:26:46)
Kota sits down with Talia and Prez from the Minyan to answer the question: Was pre-WWII Japan fascist? This is the first installment of a multi-part series on the origins, political economy, and culture of Japanese fascism. Outro: Warszawianka in Japanese (ワルシャワ労働者の歌） Support the show
- The People vs. G7 w/ Migrante Japan (01:12:43)
Roger Raymundo, a member of Migrante Japan and co-host of Radyo Migrante re-joins the show to discuss the imperialist agenda of the upcoming G7 summit in Hiroshima, how it affects the workers, peasants, and migrants from the Global South, and other related topics such as the US-led militarization of the Asia-Pacific region and Japan's "Official Security Assistance" to the Philippines. We also discuss the latest amendment to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that would make it easier...
- Caste Oppression and the Buraku Liberation Movement w/ Buraku Stories (01:13:13)
Niki from Buraku Stories joins the show to discuss the history of the struggle of a discriminated outcaste people in Japan known as Burakumin. The term “Burakumin” originated in the early twentieth century, “Buraku” meaning “village” or “hamlet,” and “min” meaning people. However, the oppression against the Burakumin people originates from the pre-capitalist status hierarchy consolidated during the Tokugawa or Edo Period between the seventeenth and late nineteenth centuries known as Shi...
- Nikkei Organizing w/ Miya Sommers, J Town Action & Solidarity, and Nikkei Uprising (01:32:34)
Kota joins an online forum “Nikkei Organizing: A Community Discussion on Organizing Strategy and Developing Revolutionary Movements” held via Zoom on November 13, 2022. The event was hosted and moderated by Miya Sommers from Nikkei Resisters as part of her Master’s thesis project, and joined by representatives of two other US-based organizations: Zen and Henry from J-Town Action and Solidarity, and Anne and Cori from Nikkei Uprising. The event was also inspired by James Boggs' 1974 speech ...
- Anti-Obituary: Abe Shinzo w/ Deprogramming Imperialism (01:36:10)
Alisa and Hye Sung from Deprogramming Imperialism join the show to discuss Abe's legacy and his ties to the Unification Church, and review everything that's transpired since his assassination by Yamagami Tetsuya in July before the unpopular state funeral this Tuesday on September 27, 2022. We discuss the UC's activities in Japan, Korea, Philippines, Nepal, Soviet Union, El Salvador, Bolivia, and Kenya, as well as its syncretic religious fascism, fetishization of the bourgeois family, and re...
- The Anti-Vietnam War Movement and the Red Army Faction w/ Alex Finn Macartney (01:38:44)
Alex Finn Marcartney joins Kota to talk about the history of the anti-Vietnam War movement in Japan and the legacy of the Red Army Faction or the Sekigun-ha, the mother organization of the Japanese Red Army and the United Red Army we previously discussed in this podcast. In this episode, we discuss... 1) Japan’s role in the Vietnam War and the significance of Okinawa as a “keystone” for the US-Japanese imperialism in the Cold War as 2022 marks the 50th year since its so-called “reversi...
- Mlitant Labour Unionism and State Repression in Kansai w/ David McNeil (01:09:01)
David McNeil joins Kota to discuss militant labour unionism and state repression in the Kansai region of southwestern Japan. We specifically discuss the struggle of truck drivers who work for small-to-medium ready-mix concrete companies, and whose job is to take dry concrete, water it, and deliver the wet concrete to various construction sites managed by large construction companies. They are organized by the Kansai Regional Ready-Mix Branch known as Kan’nama Shibu or Kan’nama, which is...
- The History of Revolutionary Feminism and Women's Liberation Movement in Japan w/ Setsu Shigematsu (01:55:18)
Setsu Shigematsu joins Kota to discuss the history of revolutionary feminism and women's liberation movement in Japan. We first discuss the history of feminists in pre-WWII Japan such as Kanno Sugako & Kaneko Fumiko who critiqued the family system and its link with the emperor system, as well as the reality of Japanese imperialism today, its oppression of non-Japanese women and its relation with US imperialism. We then discuss the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s known as Ūm...
- Revolution Goes East: The Impact of the Russian Revolution in Japan w/ Tatiana Linkhoeva (01:48:12)
Tatiana Linkhoeva joins the show to discuss her book Revolution Goes East: Imperial Japan and Soviet Communism. Some members of the Japanese ruling class reacted to the Russian Revolution with skepticism and hostility, culminating in the Siberian Expedition. Others saw opportunities in recognizing the Soviet Union and pursuing diplomatic relations, partly influenced by the popularity of Russian literature at the time and by the notion that the revolution will modernize Russia. However, ...
- On Intermediary Exploitation w/ Ken Kawashima [Patreon Preview] (00:08:59)
In this preview of a patron-exclusive episode, Ken Kawashima discusses intermediary exploitation (中間搾取, chūkan sakushu) as a form of capitalist exploitation that indirectly exploits the labour power of workers through various intermediaries such as sub-contractors, labour brokers, and temp agencies who pinch a portion of the workers' wage as fees for finding work, providing housing, tools, and other "services." This form of exploitation has served as a control mechanism to discipline ...
- The History of Filipino Migration to Japan w/ Migrante Japan (01:54:06)
Kota is joined by Roger Raymundo of Migrante Japan, a regional chapter of Migrante International, a global alliance of grassroots migrant organizations of overseas Filipinos and their families. We begin our conversation with Roger’s own story of migration from the Philippines to Japan, and how the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during WWII affected his life, as well as the semi-colonization and semi-feudalization of the Philippines by imperialist countries such as Japan as the root ca...
- The Proletarian Gamble: Uno Kōzō's Theory of Crisis & Korean Workers in Interwar Japan w/ Ken Kawashima (02:26:13)
Kota is joined by Ken Kawashima, author of The Proletarian Gamble: Korean Workers in Interwar Japan and translator of Theory of Crisis by Japanese Marxist economist Uno Kōzō. We begin the interview by discussing Uno’s methodology in analyzing capitalism called Sandankairon, or three-steps theory. The first step involves elucidating the fundamental principles of capitalism. The second step involves tracing the historical development of capitalism in stages. The third step is the conjectu...
- Ghost in the Machine: The Emperor System & Anti-Revolutionary Thought Policing in Interwar Japan w/ Max Ward (02:15:37)
Kota sits down with Max Ward to discuss his book about the Japanese state’s effort to suppress revolutionary movements and ideologically convert their participants through the Peace Preservation Law in the 1920s & 30s. We begin our interview by discussing the elusive concept of “Kokutai” (national polity or national essence) through a metaphor of Ghost in the Machine, the ideology of imperial sovereignty that animated the Japanese state and its application of the PPL. While th...
- Solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance w/ May Shigenobu (02:29:11)
Kota sits down with a Palestinian-Japanese journalist Shigenobu May to talk about Palestine. May is the daughter of Shigenobu Fusako, a former member of the Japanese Red Army and a political prisoner in Japan. She is currently based in Lebanon, and since Lebanon is a country underdeveloped by imperialism, the availability of electricity and internet connectivity are very limited. As a result, I interviewed her on two separate occasions and combined them into one episode. In the first ...
- Women in the Japanese New Left w/ Chelsea Szendi Schieder (01:47:17)
Kota is joined by Chelsea Szendi Schieder to discuss her latest book Coed Revolution: The Female Student in the Japanese New Left. Women in the Japanese New Left played a vital role in building up the militant student movement against Japan’s new capitalist education system and its complicity with the US imperialist aggression in Southeast Asia. However, the gender dynamic and patriarchal tendencies within the movement undermined their effort and led to the movement’s demise. This weakness w...
- The History of Marxism in Japan w/ Gavin Walker - Part 2 (00:55:23)
Against Japanism presents Part 2 of an interview with Dr. Gavin Walker about the history of Marxism in Japan, focusing on the postwar period starting in the late 1940s. First, we discuss the reason behind the Japanese Communist Party’s re-emergence as a mass party in the immediate postwar period. As mentioned in Part 1, in the 1920s and 30s, the JCP was a member of the Communist International or the Comintern (also known as the Third International) headquartered in the Soviet Union. Th...
- The History of Marxism in Japan w/ Gavin Walker - Part 1 (01:11:49)
In this two part series, Kota sits down with Gavin Walker to discuss the history of Marxism in Japan. Instead of simply narrating the facts of this history chronologically, we focus on particular theoretical and political questions that animated the Japanese communist movement before and after the Second World War. We begin our conversation by discussing what the history of Marxism in Japan tells us about “Japan” as represented by the Eurocentric and Orientalist conception of the...
- A Fundraising Appeal from Pato-chan (00:19:56)
This mini-episode features a message from Pat (also known as Pato-chan), a trans woman from the Philippines and a former migrant detainee living in Japan, who is raising funds to support herself during her "provisional release" (Karihoumen in Japanese) which prohibits her from working and accessing healthcare. Donate here or here. Sign this petition to defeat the "Immigration Law Revision Bill." CW: Transphobia, racism, death, suicide Pat came to Japan in January 2015. Alth...