Cold War encounters in US-occupied Okinawa : women, militarized domesticity and transnationalism in East Asia / Mire Koikari, University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Koikari, Mire, 1965- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Militarism--Pacific Area--History--20th century.

Women--Japan--Okinawa Island--History--20th century.

Cold War.

United States--Relations--Japan--History--20th century.

Japan--Relations--United States--History--20th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 235 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this innovative and engaging study, Mire Koikari recasts the US occupation of Okinawa as a startling example of Cold War cultural interaction in which women's grassroots activities involving homes and homemaking played a pivotal role in reshaping the contours of US and Japanese imperialisms. Drawing on insights from studies of gender, Asia, America and postcolonialism, Koikari analyzes how the occupation sparked domestic education movements in Okinawa, mobilizing an assortment of women - home economists, military wives, club women, university students and homemakers - from the US, Okinawa and mainland Japan. These women went on to pursue a series of activities to promote 'modern domesticity' and build 'multicultural friendship' amidst intense militarization on the islands. As these women took their commitment to domesticity and multiculturalism onto the larger terrain of the Pacific, they came to articulate the complex intertwinement of gender, race, domesticity, empire and transnationality that existed during the Cold War.

Contents:

Cover; Half title; Title; Copyright; Contents; Acknowledgments; Note on Japanese names; List of illustrations; 1 Re-thinking gender and militarism in Cold War Okinawa; Re-thinking women, home, and empire in the US occupation of Okinawa; Chapter organization; 2 Cultivating feminine affinity and affiliation with Americans: Cold War people-to-people encounters and women's club activities; USCAR, Cold War occupation, and grassroots people-to-people encounters; The USCAR Women's Club and tales of feminine friendship in Cold War Okinawa

Staging Cold War equality and mutuality: the Ryukyuan-American Women's Symposium and the Ryukyuan-American Cultural CenterConclusions; 3 ""The world is our campus"": domestic science and Cold War transnationalism between Michigan and Okinawa; MSU, John Hannah, and Cold War international education; Domestic science, women's empowerment, and Cold War multiculturalism; ""Manifest domesticity,"" militarization, and Cold War transnationalism; Conclusions; 4 Building a bridge across the Pacific: domestic training and Cold War technical interchange between Okinawa and Hawaii

""The path of the United States into a future of world understanding"": Hawaii in the Cold War Asia-PacificBaron Goto and the politics of international technical and educational interchange in the Cold War Pacific; Domesticity, technology, and pedagogy of multiculturalism in Cold War Hawaii; Tales of home, immigration, and American ""democracy"" in Cold War Okinawa; Conclusions; 5 Mobilizing homes, empowering women: Okinawan home economists and Cold War domestic education; UR home economics: the beginning

Nurturing women's aspirations: narratives of science, domesticity, and women's empowerment in Cold War OkinawaPursuing science in Cold War Okinawa: women, militarized knowledge, and the production of post-war bodies; Mobilizing Okinawan homes for the Cold War: grassroots reform; Conclusions; 6 Cultivating feminine affinity and affiliation with the homeland: grassroots women's exchange between Mainland Japan and Okinawa; Cultivating Cold War affinity and affiliation between Okinawa and Japan; Training young women in Okinawa: the Future Homemakers of Okinawa

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-316-35522-5

1-316-34922-5

1-316-36162-4

1-316-36362-7

1-316-36262-0

1-316-36462-3

1-316-35822-4

1-139-94192-5