Cold War Encounters in US-Occupied Okinawa: Women, Militarized Domesticity and Transnationalism in East Asia
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Reprint, 6/1/2017
EAN 9781107438811, ISBN10: 1107438810
Paperback, 248 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
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.
1. Rethinking gender and militarism in Cold War Okinawa
2. Cultivating feminine affinity and affiliation with Americans
Cold War people-to-people encounters and women's club activities
3. 'The world is our campus'
domestic science and Cold War transnationalism between Michigan and Okinawa
4. Building a bridge across the Pacific
domestic training and Cold War technical interchange between Okinawa and Hawaii
5. Mobilizing homes, empowering women
Okinawan home economists and Cold War domestic education
6. Cultivating feminine affinity and affiliation with the homeland
grassroots women's exchange between mainland Japan and Okinawa
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index.