Transborder Citizens’ Movements: Challenging Pax Americana
Transborder Citizens’ Movements: Challenging Pax Americana
Fall Semester
Tsuda College: Thursday 1:00-2:30,
English 3 Seminar in International Relations Faculty
Hitotsubashi University: Thursday 10:40-12:10,
Oral Skills 3 in Social Sciences Faculty
With increasing U.S. military interventions and continuing U.S. support for military/authoritarian regimes and opposition to democracy in the Third World, many American citizens began questioning the legitimacy of the postwar U.S. role as the world’s policeman, and started forming grassroots-based organizations in the 1960s as innovative responses to the frequently asked question, “What can I do?” This proliferation of citizens’ movements has recently coalesced in a mutual search for world peace, and an end to poverty and social injustice. Connections are being made by activists worldwide between local and international struggles as well as between the movements themselves, with a focus of attention on the interdependence of states and the power of people united at the grassroots to effect structural changes. We will see that these new social movements and grassroots-based organizations, with a transborder perspective, are one of the most promising developments of the current era. They recognize that the interests of the majority of people living in the Third World coincide with the interests of the majority of First World inhabitants.
During the first part of the semester we will examine, through films and readings, some of the areas in which citizens’ movements are involved in (e.g. anti-war; alternative tourism; human rights; alternative development; militarization and indigenous peoples; consumer and corporate responsibility). We will also examine Japan’s role in maintaining support for the Pax Americana and look at some of the grassroots-based movements/NGOs in Japan that are working for peace and social/political justice.
In the latter part of the semester you will, either in groups or individually, choose a particular organization (e.g. Polaris Project, Amnesty International, Japan Committee for Negros Campaign, Greenpeace, ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Pornography, and Trafficking), JATAN (Japan Tropical Forest Action Network), Free the Children, Global Village, Sarawak Campaign Committee, Asian Women’s Association, World Peace Now etc.) to focus an in-class presentation on. In preparation for the presentation, you will do a minimum of four hours of participant-observation research on the topic of your choice in an accessible location, taking field notes. You are free, indeed encouraged, to choose grassroots-based organizations that reflect your particular interests. During the presentation, in addition to providing a brief introduction to the group you visited, you will provide a discussion of your fieldwork experience on the research topic and setting, methods used, and data gathered, and evaluate the field experience (noting successes, setbacks, surprises, and adaptations). The grade will not be based on English proficiency or the relative “success” of the fieldwork, but on your analysis of the fieldwork project and critical evaluation of the group studied. This fieldwork research experience is intended to give you an opportunity to see for yourself the ways in which concerned citizens are taking action to create a better future for all as well as provide you with the chance to present your research findings and introduce the group or organization you chose for your project to your classmates.
Documentary films (transcripts provided) will be supplemented by lectures related to the film topic. Students are expected to take lecture and film notes and if a reading is assigned, students are expected to prepare for the following week’s discussion by writing down any comments or points they would like to make or questions they would like to raise for group or class discussion. In this way, everyone will have the opportunity to contribute to discussions, and we will be able to gain insights into the variety of responses to, and interpretations of, any given material.
Students absent from class more than six times during the year (Tsuda College) or more than four times during the semester (Hitotsubashi University) will not receive course credits. Grades will be based on class attendance, active participation in group and class discussions, and the fall term group fieldwork research presentation.
Copies of required readings (if not available on my website) will be provided one week in advance.