<論文>ある<占領経験>の社会学的考察 : 沖縄軍政における住民統治の変容と民主化運動の諸様態

Abstract

In this paper I examine the U.S. military occupation on postwar Okinawa. The U.S. military authorities engaged intellectuals, especially social scientists, as occupation officers. The social scientists did research on the social and historical relations of Okinawa(n). They were part of the occupation and their intention was to "appropriate" racial, national, ideological and other relations. This paper focuses on such "rule by knowledge", a neo-colonialist technology of military occupation on Okinawa. I treat the following aspects: (1) How have the U.S. military authorities applied such technology to the administration of people on Okinawa and what conditions have they brought about for these people? (2) How have people, especially in democracy movements, negotiated the occupation policies? In the early postwar period, the U.S. social scientists attempted to "appropriate" the racism exerted by the Japanese (immigrant) societies against the Okinawans. Their aim was to segregate the population into the "Okinawan" and the "Japanese", and to create an "Okinawan" geopolitical "identity". As a result, in the early stages of the democracy movement, people criticized the rule of the Japanese (and the U.S. military occupation) by using the word "Okinawan". But the U.S. military administration soon became more oppressive. Moreover, in 1951, the "mainland" declared its "independence" from the U.N. (=the U.S.) as the "new Japan" (in contradistinction to the "prewar Japan"), and washed its hands of the social and political situation on Okinawa by "lending" it to the U.S. Under these new conditions, the people of the democracy movements were made choose the word "reversion to Japan". This change in the democracy movements resulted in a renewed attempt by the U.S. social scientists to research the new situation and to produce new "knowledge" for the military occupation. As they recognized the prevalence in various democracy movements of the expression "reversion to Japan", the military authorities introduced a strategy of appeasing Okinawan intellectuals and "beneficiaries" of the U.S. (the bases on Okinawa), and of dividing the "reversionist movements". As a result, some parts of the "movements" critical of colonialism or of the "cold war" have been weakened. This is a process in which the memories of Okinawan people have been exploited and histories overwritten again and again. Parallel to such overlapping of histories, one may say that the subjectivities of people on Okinawa have become more and more complicated.