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Negotiating Gender Equality in Daily Work: An Ethnography of a Public Women’s Organisation in Okinawa, Japan Yoko Narisada PhD in Social Anthropology University of Edinburgh 2010 1 Declaration I declare that this work has been composed entirely by me and is completely my own work. No part of it has been submitted for any other degree. Yoko Narisada 29 July 2010 2 Abstract This doctoral research is a contribution to the understanding of social activism and its socio-cultural formation in postcolonial Okinawa. It is based on eighteen months of fieldwork including participant observation and interviews at a public women’s organisation, Women’s Organisation Okinawa (WOO). This project centres on the lived practices of staff who attempted to produce and encourage gender equality in the public sector under neoliberal governance. I demonstrate through ethnographic analysis how the practice of law and social movements is distinct from the ideals of such movements as well as the particular individuals involved in them. WOO was established in the public sector by local government in alliance with various grassroots groups in Okinawa in the late 1990s. WOO embraced the dreams, hopes and anticipations of various actors - users and workers - who had been involved in the establishment, but in reality, it also contained various contradictions. First, WOO was a new workplace for those who wanted to work in activism and be paid for their work, but also reproduced precarious, low-waged, gendered labour. Second, WOO was a site which put law into practice, but it revealed that law internalised the inconsistency between what people had originally expected of the law and what law enacted as a result of institutionalisation. Third, WOO unexpectedly became a focal point of contact between neoliberal and feminist governance through public services and the requirements of performing accountability for citizens and for feminist activism. Thus frontline practitioners attempted to bridge the gap between ideal, reality, law and practice and to negotiate with neoliberal and feminist governance in the labour process. This thesis demonstrates how the inconsistencies between ideal and reality arose in the daily working practices of staff positioned between citizens, laws and social movements. More precisely, it explores how staff attempted to negotiate, accommodate and struggle with the gap between ideal and reality through their lived experience, rather than fiercely resisting or merely being subject to a form of governance or reality. In doing so, the thesis reveals how unstable and problematic the notion of ‘gender equality’ was as it was deployed at WOO. 3 Table of Contents Declaration 2 Abstract 3 Acknowledgments 6 Abbreviations and Acronyms 8 Glossary 10 Chapter One: Introduction 13 Introduction 13 1. The contexts of Okinawa 15 2. Okinawan studies 22 3. Gender, law and Japan 28 4. Situating the research theory 38 5. Methodology 52 6. Outline of the chapters 65 Chapter Two: Setting the Scene: Women’s Organisation Okinawa 69 Introduction 69 1. Place 69 2. Building 70 3. History (or milieu) 72 4. Mission statement 83 5. Structure 84 6. Funding 86 7. Projects 88 8. Staff 91 Conclusion 95 Chapter Three: Consuming Gender Equality 97 Introduction 97 1. Consumer culture in the public sector 98 2. Consumer culture within WOO 102 3. Accountability from a gender perspective 110 Conclusion 118 Chapter Four: Enumerating Gender Equality 121 Introduction 121 1. Passion for counting and increasing numbers 122 2. Enumeration and categorisation 130 3. Missing in the process of enumeration and categorisation 135 Conclusion 142 Chapter Five: Governing Gender Equality 144 Introduction 144 1. Gender equality policy in Okinawa Prefecture 146 2. Assertiveness training class 155 4 3. Afterwards 169 Conclusion 179 Chapter Six: Okinawa, woman, contract worker 182 Introduction 182 1. Being an ‘Okinawan’ and ‘Okinawa’ 184 2. Being a ‘contract worker’ as a ‘woman’ 191 3. Categories in the politics of gender 199 4. Unspeakable contemporary sex work in Okinawa 203 Conclusion 207 Chapter Seven: Fatal loyalty to feminism? 210 Introduction 210 1. To be a feminist at work 212 2. Implicit demand for loyalty to feminism 225 3. Fatal loyalty to feminism? 230 Conclusion 241 Chapter Eight: Conclusion 243 The public sphere in post-colonial Okinawa 243 Feminist governance meets neoliberal governance 244 Gender perspectives 246 Dilemmas between the feminist subject and gendered being 247 In conclusion 249 Appendix 1 Organisational Tree of WOO 252 Appendix 2 Counselling categories and sub-categories 253 Appendix 3 International, national and prefectural gender equality 256 policies and events in Okinawa Bibliography 267 5 Acknowledgements I am deeply grateful to the following for generous financial support: a Rotary International Scholarship from the Rotary International Foundation, a Matsushita International Foundation Research Grant, an Overseas Research Student Award, a Faculty Group Law and Social Sciences Postgraduate Research Studentship from the University of Edinburgh, an Award to Women for Postgraduate Study & Research from the Funds for Women Graduates, and a Radcliffe-Brown & Firth Trust Funds Award for Social Anthropological Research from the Royal Anthropological Institute and the Association of Social Anthropologists. My thesis is dedicated to the feminist contract workers who taught me about the possibility of difference and solidarity through our daily practices at WOO. Without them, this doctoral project would not have happened. I express my utmost respect to all the members of the Okinawa Gender Theory Group for their extraordinary activity connecting theory, politics and practice and their unstinting support of my research over many years. In Okinawa I had the tremendous good fortune of being assisted in numerous ways by Aguni Chieko, Higa Minoru, Ishida Katsumi, Nakama Michiko, Nakamura Miyako, Nakamura Uta, Oshiro Michiko and Professor Tsuha Takashi. Thanks also to Professor Norma Field, Professor Nakatani Ayami, Takahara Sachiko and Dr Takeshita Sayoko who encouraged me to distil my experience at WOO into a PhD thesis. I owe a great debt of gratitude to Doi Tomoyoshi, Jung Yujin, Kinjo Masaki, Professor Sugihara Toru, Professor Tomiyama Ichiro, Dr Toriyama Atsushi and Uechi Miwa for their fascinating insights and our stimulating conversations, which moulded the thesis. Extensive Japanese literature sent by those friends made writing up in Edinburgh possible. I had the most remarkable supervision during my project. Professor Janet Carsten has supervised me with most intelligent and firm guidance throughout the project and taught me that supervision was possible only with mutual trust. Dr Tobias Kelly has nurtured my critical anthropological view to rethink taken for granted matters. Dr Iris Jean-Klein led me to tackle politics in anthropology at the earliest stage of the project. 6 I am most grateful to Paul Anderson, Lisa Arensen, Professor Francesca Bray, Dr Sarah Cann, Dr Jeanne Cannizzo, Hyunchul Kim, Dr Heonik Kwon, Kwok Oiling, Beginda Pakpahan, Phoebe Rose, Charlie Shanlin, Dr Premakumara De Silva, Dr Neil Thin, Dr Steve Tilley, Dr Uchiyamada Yashushi, Phurba Yanji Sherpa, Guo Zhong and Dr Zhijun Zhong for giving me joy, comfort and confidence in my academic life in Edinburgh. The Gender Reading Group convened by Dr Fiona Mackay and Dr Meryl Kenny offered me the precious opportunity to be engaged in feminist politics in Edinburgh. My project was also inspired and assisted in other locations by Dr Hazel Conley, Professor Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Dr Nicky Priaulx, Professor Masakazu Tanaka, Margaret Truman, Professor Nira Yuval-Davis, Professor Pnina Werbner and Professor Paul Willis. Intensive editing work by Elena Pollot, Rebecca Rotter, Angela Riviere and Dr Jennifer Speirs made the thesis readable. Finally, my special thanks to my mother, Ayako Narisada, for supporting me throughout my doctoral studies. 7 Abbreviations and acronyms Act Act on the Prevention of Spousal Violence and the Protection of Victims (Japan) Action Plan Action Plan of Okinawa Prefecture for the Solution of Women’s Issues AWW Association of Women’s Wings Basic Law Basic Law for a Gender-Equal Society (Japan) Beijing Conference United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women DEIGO development, equality, innovation, global and Okinawa DEIGO Plan 21 Action Plan of Okinawa Prefecture for the Realisation of a Society in which Both Men and Women Participate (1993) DEIGO Plan 2002 Okinawa Prefectural Plan for Participation of Both Men and Women DMS Designated Management