Solidarity in Sympathy: Japanese Grassroots Politics across National Boundaries
Joseph Hankins - Associate Professor of Anthropology, UC San Diego
Friday, October 9, 2015 - 12:00pm
Room 105, Department of Anthropology
10 Sachem Street
New Haven, CT
06511
Since 2003, a small group of Japanese sanitation workers has traveled annually from Tokyo to Chennai, India to meet with a group they understand as comrades - the Dalit. Every year, over the course of a week, the Japanese visitors tour Dalit places of work, their homes, and share with them stories of pain and discrimination – the difficulties of marginalization alongside the triumphs of resistance. Using this type of solidarity trip as an ethnographic crucible, my talk examines the internationalization of Japanese grassroots politics. I explore how boundaries – national, ethnic, linguistic, or otherwise – are presumed, overcome, or remain as the Japanese Buraku people attempt to forge ties with the Dalit of South Asia.
Series:
Region:
Japan