![]() ![]() Nonetheless, freeter movement activists have tried to mobilize youth by creating a political opportunity rooted in the limitations they face in the labor market. In short, these are not treated as being localized in an easily identifiable person or single policy, nor are they immediate threats in the same sense-rather they are difficult to understand by academic or popular audiences. As such, this is a shift that has been probably occurring since the Japanese economy started to slow its growth trajectory, about 1975, and is linked to the labor restructuring policies of both Nakasone (1982-1987) and Koizumi (2001-2006). The concept of the precariat, a combination of “precarious” and “proletariat,” suggests that a new social class is emerging in postindustrial economies through a shared economic and social insecurity (Standing 2011). While it is difficult to reduce the range of issues within the freeter movement to a single grievance, there is a close identification in the movement with the “precariat” (see Amamiya 2007 for an activist’s articulation of the idea in Japan). The annual Freedom and Survival May Day demonstration, organized by the General Freeter Union, for instance, is ideologically aligned with EuroMayDay, a transnational anti-globalization movement aimed at protesting and protecting the rights of precarious workers. By contrast, the freeter movement is calling for a far more radical re-evaluation of the social, political, and economic configuration of Japanese society. These are concrete, immediate, and pressing issues that have been picked up even by the mainstream media. SEALDs main grievance is that the principles of “liberal democracy” have been violated by the “reinterpretation” (that is, the undermining) of the Constitution and through pushing forward a set of security bills despite substantial popular opposition and doubts about their procedural legitimacy. One of the important distinctions between these different youth movements is that the analysis of some freeter activists is compatible with calls for radical change, while SEALDs attempts to restore the general status quo of the pre-Abe period. Two notable examples of the freeter movement are the General Freeter Union ( Furītā Zenpan Rōdō Kumiai), known for organizing their annual alternative “Freedom and Survival May Day,” and the Amateur’s Riot ( Shirōto no Ran) organized by a group of activists running recycle shops, cafes, and hangout spaces near Koenji station and known for organizing a series of alternative protest events (Obinger 2015). The freeter movement against precarity that emerged in 2004 (see Cassegard 2014 for a genealogy of recent youth movements in Japan see O’Day 2012 for a close ethnography of its political organization and movements) also provides a productive comparison since freeter youth activists also tried to break free from the stigma against public protest and youth activism left over from the ANPO period. While it is valuable to compare SEALDs with the student activism of ANPO, it is also import to recognize SEALDs positioning within the broader social movement scene in contemporary Japan. Yet, SEALDs is also contrasted with, and works hard to distinguish itself from ANPO in an effort to differentiates itself from this legacy. The comparison is obvious since SEALDs has been able to politically mobilize large numbers of youth to a degree so far unseen since the AMPO period, and both movements are concerned, at least in part, with security treaties with the United States and Japan’s global role. ![]() See footnote 1 in regards to the article title.Īs a student movement, SEALDs (Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy) is often compared with the ANPO student movements of the 1960s and 1970s by media, outside observers, and the members themselves.
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