Session 199: Individual Papers: Activism and Culture in Asia

Organizer and Chair: Patricia G. Steinhoff, University of Hawaii, Manoa

Falun Gong and Self-Improvement in Reform Era China

Chuck Ditzler, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Most academic researchers of Falun Gong have studied it as a form of religion. Although this perspective is useful, I argue that it is better to categorize Falun Gong as a self-improvement or self-help movement. Defining it as a religion goes against the self-understanding of practitioners and focuses on certain characteristics, such as vocabulary borrowed from Buddhism and Daoism, at the expense of other important characteristics shared with and influenced by non-religions. Drawing on my experiences while living in China from 1991 to 1996, participant observation conducted since 2000, web postings, press reports, interviews, and other sources, I examine why practitioners refuse to categorize Falun Gong as a religion, the uses and limitations of viewing it through the lens of religion, and its relationship with various kinds of self-help practices that have become popular in China in the reform era. The problem with applying Western-derived terms, such as religion, on Falun Gong suggests that maybe we should consider the usefulness of adopting Chinese-derived terms, such as "cultivation practice," when studying Western phenomena.

A Cold of the Heart: Antidepressant Medications and the Changing Meanings of Private Suffering in Contemporary Japan

Ken Vickery, University of Pittsburgh

Depression is increasingly becoming a part of the national consciousness in Japan. The rates of diagnosis, visibility of pharmaceutical advertising, attention by television and print media, and number of government-sponsored outreach projects have all increased markedly—giving rise to what is arguably a "depression boom." This paper will use the differences between Japan’s "depression boom" and America’s "Prozac Revolution" as a vehicle for examining the ways in which depression—allegedly a biomedical, ahistorical entity—actually lives a cultural life.

SSRIs (antidepressant drugs, which include Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft) were first authorized for use in Japan in 1997, long after America’s "Prozac Revolution" had come and gone. Before that time, depression was not commonly diagnosed in Japan, nor did it factor significantly in public discourse. Since that time, depression has become a significant topic of concern among clinicians, policymakers, and the general public. This concern, however, comprises elements that seem more cultural than biomedical: the morality of stoicism, the supposed "Japaneseness" of anxiety, the importance of duty, the reliance on hierarchy, and the limited acceptability of expressing negative emotions. In what way do these and other cultural elements factor into the emerging understandings of what "depression" is? This paper examines this question by reference to narratives of depression obtained from media sources, from interviews with patients and doctors, and from participant-observation in two psychiatric hospitals and outpatient clinics.

Anti-Americanism among South Korean College Students: An Examination of the Nature and Causes of the Phenomenon

Haesook Chae, Baldwin-Wallace College

The recent rise of anti-Americanism in South Korea, a staunch ally of America for the past half-century, has drawn much attention. To accurately understand the causes of current anti-Americanism, this study examines the common, and often untested, assumptions, beliefs and reasonings about the rise of anti-Americanism offered in the existing literature. Five hypotheses can be discerned from the literature, each focusing on a factor considered to have an impact on Koreans’ attitude towards America. In this study, these hypotheses are each tested using data created based on a 2004 extensive survey of Korean college students.

The most significant finding of this study contradicts the commonly held view that, among college age South Koreans, the lessening fear of the North Korean threat is what is largely responsible for the rise of anti-Americanism. On the contrary, this study shows, first, that the perception of the North Korean threat is much higher than commonly assumed, and second, that this threat perception is unrelated to how South Koreans feel about the U.S. In other words, this study de-couples the two factors—anti-Americanism and the perception of the North Korean threat—that are most frequently linked in current explanatory models. Instead, this study shows that it is singularly the image of the U.S., its policies and particularly, its handling of the North Korean nuclear problem, that affect South Korean sentiments toward the U.S. In short, causation for South Korean anti-Americanism lies not with North Korea, per se, but in American foreign policy.

Competing Environmental Discourses and Their Impact on Urban Environmental Claims: A Case from Kolkata, India

Medha Chandra, University College, London

This paper proposes to look at the relationship between environmental discourses and the ability of environmental claims—shaped by these varied discourses—in accessing urban municipal channels. This is based on the author’s Ph.D. fieldwork in Kolkata, India, from 2002 to 2003. The paper uses two case studies of urban environmental conflicts to examine the discourses towards the urban environment ascribed to and discursive practices followed by various actors who are part of these conflicts. The actors focused on are the municipality and the groups of claim makers—middle class as well as grassroots groups. Using the argumentative approach of discourse analysis, the environmental discourses are examined through storylines, images and concepts utilized to express and propagate a discourse. The discursive formats and cognitive commitments that are reflected through this examination help in pointing to formation of discourse coalitions. The paper looks at the political culture and bureaucratic culture of the formal channels as part of this inquiry, examining the impact of everyday politics and high politics on shaping the formal channel’s discourse and practice. Discursive parity between those claim makers whose environmental discourse is more compatible with that of the municipal politicians and officials points to the increased possibility of formation of discourse coalitions between them. Such discourse coalitions have an exclusionary impact for the environmental claims of those groups not part of the coalition. These arguments are illustrated with extracts from field interviews and secondary sources such as newspapers and television.

Transnational Social Movements in East Asia: Protesting the Asian Development Bank

Kim Reimann, Georgia State University

Until quite recently, neither civil society nor non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were considered important actors in regional politics or governance in East Asia. Over the past two decades, however, NGOs working on environmental and development issues in both Northeast and Southeast Asia have proliferated and are now part of an increasingly dense web of societal groups and activists with national, regional and international ties. Since the 1990s, these new transnational networks in East Asia have organized numerous environment-related campaigns which have challenged the status quo and influenced the public debate on global governance and sustainable development in the region. This paper examines the growth of transnational NGO networks in East Asia and how these networks have affected governance at both the regional and national levels. To explore these processes in greater empirical detail, the paper examines the case of transnational environmental networks targeting the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Through an analysis of the various local, national, regional and international components of the ADB campaigns, the paper shows how globalization and global political processes have led to new forms of protest and citizen action in East Asia, which have in turn affected patterns of global governance in the region.