In this ambitious ethnographical study, Masamichi S. Inoue attempts to explain how the large, long-standing, and continuing U.S. military presence in Okinawa contributed to the formation of a postwar Okinawan identity, a culture of resistance, and a deep sense of island solidarity. By the 1990s, when Inoue conducted his research, however, he found fissures at the intersections of class, gender, and generational difference. Maintaining cohesion became even more complicated as Okinawans “awakened to globally disseminated ideas about ecology, women's equality, and peace” (p. 9). Despite cracks in solidarity, Inoue demonstrates, the culture of resistance remains a formable force in Okinawa's relationship with policy makers in Tokyo and Washington. At the same time, Inoue acknowledges the fundamental question that continues to vex Okinawa's activist community: Why has the protracted anti-base movement fundamentally failed to alter the status quo?

Inoue's theoretical and methodological stances make his ethnographical account overtly political as he...

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