Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
1. The Birth of Okinawa Prefecture and the Creation of Difference
27
2. The Miyako Island Peasantry Movement as an Event 49
3. Reforming Old Customs, Transforming Women's Work 79
4. The Impossibility of Plantation Sugar in Okinawa 115
5. Uneven Development and the Rejection of Economic Nationalism in
"Sago Palm Hell" Okinawa 146
Conclusion. Living Labor and the Limits of Okinawan Community
182
Notes 189
Bibliography 247
Index 265
Wendy Matsumura is Assistant Professor of History and Asian Studies
at Furman University.
"[The Limits of Okinawa] supplies a previously unexplored
and highly convincing account of the historical struggles of small
producer communities - analysing the interactions between their
peasantries, local elites and the Japanese state.... Matsumura
masterfully injects drama and intrigue to embellish what is already
a rigorous analysis of Okinawa's pre-war socio-economic and
political history." -- Ra Mason * History *
"Matsumura's compelling and theory-informed account of
anticapitalist struggles by small producers and cultivators against
both local and national agents of political, economic, and
sociocultural transformation offers a new perspective on the
relationships between colonialism, capitalism, and identity
formation. The book is a valuable resource not only for historians,
anthropologists, and sociologists who are interested in Japan and
Okinawa but also for other scholars who are more broadly concerned
with the micropolitics of socioeconomic transformation under
colonialism." -- Taku Suzuki * Journal of Japanese Studies *
"...The Limits of Okinawa is indispensible to specialists
simply for the stories that it tells. However, its attention to
historiography and theory makes it equally relevant to
nonspecialists." -- James Rhys Edwards * Marx & Philosophy Review
of Books *
"This is by far the best history available in English of Okinawa
between 1879, when it was forcibly annexed by Japan, and the
depression years of the 1930s. Appropriately focusing on economics,
Matsumura persuasively applies current interpretations of Marxist
theory to show the political, social and cultural effects of
corporate and government efforts to make of Okinawans what Marx
called 'dead labor' for the sugar and textile industries, and
describes how workers and farmers resisted them." -- Steve Rabson *
Left History *
"Wendy Matsumura has crafted a well-documented, theory-heavy
account of labor and identity along the colonial periphery of
imperial Japan. . . . The Limits of Okinawa is a must-read
for anyone interested in the co-production of industrialization and
colonialism, in Japan and the world." -- Christopher Gerteis *
American Historical Review *
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