The Living Politics of Self-Help Movements in East Asia

246 Pages·2018·3.51 MB·English

by  Tom Cliff

THE LIVING POLITICS
OF SELF-HELP MOVEMENTS
IN EAST ASIA
Edited by
TOM CLIFF
TESSA MORRIS-SUZUKI
SHUGE WEI
The Living Politics of Self-Help Movements
in East Asia
Tom Cliff • Tessa Morris-Suzuki
Shuge Wei
Editors
The Living Politics of
Self-Help Movements
in East Asia
Editors
Tom Cliff Tessa Morris-Suzuki
Australian National University Australian National University
Canberra, Australia Canberra, Australia
Shuge Wei
Australian National University
Canberra, Australia
ISBN 978-981-10-6336-7 ISBN 978-981-10-6337-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6337-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017958003
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018
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Preface and acknowledgements
Since 2013, our research group, based at the Australian National
University, has been exploring the quiet ways in which groups of ordinary
people across East Asia are addressing social problems and improving their
lives through self-help action. Members of the team have traveled to com-
munities in Inner and Outer Mongolia, China, Japan, Taiwan, and South
Korea, meeting a remarkable range of people who are experimenting with
their own forms of everyday politics. Some of the participants in these
local experiments have also joined international workshops or conferences
that we have run here in Australia, and through our website and confer-
ences, we are seeking to create networks that will help the practitioners of
informal life politics across the region to learn about and from one another.
Our research has made us conscious of common patterns that link these
informal life politics actions, even though the participants are based in
communities far distant from one another and are citizens of countries
with radically divergent formal political systems. In this book, we explore
these common threads, painting a picture of a form of political action
which is often ignored by scholars, but which, we argue, is having a pro-
found impact on the life of the region. The cases we explore here are not
simple success stories. Many of the groups whose work is discussed in the
chapters that follow have faced, and continue to face, external and internal
challenges. But their persistence, creativity, and imagination, we argue,
offer inspiration for others and hope for the future.
This book links case study chapters with a series of “concept essays,”
which draw out key themes for understanding the processes of living poli-
tics. We hope that these will contribute to wider future discussion and
v
vi PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
study of this phenomenon in East Asia and beyond. The cases we have
studied pose important questions about our understanding of the very
meaning of “politics” itself. Our aim, in responding to those questions, is
to open up space for a wider reimagining of the meaning of political life in
the twenty-frst-century world.
The editors and authors express their deep gratitude to the Australian
Research Council, which has supported this research through its Laureate
Fellowship program (project FL120100155—Informal Life Politics in the
Remaking of Northeast Asia: From Cold War to post-Cold War). We also
warmly thank our fellow project members Eun Jeong Soh and Robert
Winstanley-Chesters, who have contributed greatly to the development of
our ideas about informal life politics in the region, and express particular
thanks to the project’s research assistant and administrator, Hanbyol Lee.
This research, of course, would not have been possible without the kind-
ness and cooperation of many people in Beijing, South Korea, Inner
Mongolia, Okinawa and other parts of Japan, and Taiwan, who generously
shared their time, experiences, and ideas with us. We express our gratitude
to all of them, and to our partners and families who have shared this jour-
ney of discovery with us.
contents
1 I ntroduction: Living Politics—Social Alternatives and 
the Crisis of Democracy 1
Tessa Morris-Suzuki and Shuge Wei
Part I Citizenships 15
2 C oncept Essay One: Ignoring the Attention-S eeking State 17
Tom Cliff
3 S urvival as Citizenship, or Citizenship as Survival?
Imagined and Transient Political Groups in Urban China 29
Tom Cliff and Kan Wang
4 S elf-Help Is Political: How Organic Farming Creates
an Autonomous Space Within the South Korean
Nation State 57
Yon Jae Paik
vii
viii CONTENTS
Part II Networks 97
5 C oncept Essay Two: Leveraging Informal Networks
for Survival Politics 99
Uchralt Otede
6 I nformal Grassland Protection Networks in Inner
Mongolia 107
Uchralt Otede
7 F orest, Music, and Farming: The Takae Anti-H elipad
Movement and Everyday Life as Political Space 131
Shinnosuke Takahashi
Part III Alternatives 151
8 C oncept Essay Three: Alternative Value Creation 153
Shuge Wei and Tessa Morris-Suzuki
9 T he Dilemmas of Peach Blossom Valley: The Resurgence
of Rice-Terrace Farming in Gongliao District, Taiwan 163
Shuge Wei
1 0 T he Neverending Story: Alternative Exchange and 
Living Politics in a Japanese Regional Community 189
Tessa Morris-Suzuki
1 1 Epilogue: Improvising the Future 215
Tessa Morris-Suzuki and Shuge Wei
B ibliography 219
I ndex 235
list of figures
Fig. 3.1 Industrial alleyway in Picun Village. Photograph
© Tom Cliff 2013 33
Fig. 3.2 The New Workers’ Theatre in Picun Village. Photograph
© Tom Cliff 2013 37
Image 6.1 Landscape of Mandahbulag pasture during the winter.
Photograph © Uchralt Otede 112
Fig. 6.1 Informal network of Eastern Ujimchin Educated Youth 119
Image 6.2 Well-water sampling on the grassland. Photograph
© Uchralt Otede 125
Fig. 6.2 The informal grassland protection network 125
Image 7.1 Local residents and supporters barricading a gate to
Yanbaru Forest with cars, tents, and net to block the
offcers from Okinawa Defense Bureau (white helmets,
right hand side of image). Police offcers (dark clothing,
left hand side of image) also monitored protesters with
video cameras. Photograph © Shinnosuke Takahashi 136
Image 7.2 Local resident Miyagi Katsumi (left) and a supporter who
is a rock musician from Kyoto Prefecture (right). The
musician brought a banner with supportive messages
from his fellow rock musicians and fans as a symbol of
solidarity with Takae people. Photograph © Shinnosuke
Takahashi 145
Image 9.1 Rice-terrace farming, Gongliao 164
Image 9.2 Display of local farming tools at the Hehe stone room 177
Image 9.3 Children play in the Hehe rice paddies 179
ix
x LIST OF FIGURES
Image 10.1 Ma~yu members, with passbooks in hand, trading goods
at the monthly market. Photograph © Tessa Morris-Suzuki 198
Image 10.2 Ma~yu members gather in front of Everybody’s House.
Photograph © Tessa Morris-Suzuki 201
Image 10.3 Old houses line a street on the fringe of Ueda City.
Photograph © Tessa Morris-Suzuki 203