Academic Articles by Alexander Brown
Asia-Pacific Journal : Japan Focus, 2015
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Affects such as anger, fear and love have compelled Tokyoites to take to the streets in protest i... more Affects such as anger, fear and love have compelled Tokyoites to take to the streets in protest in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster of March 2011. One of the characteristic forms these protests have taken has been the anti-nuclear "sound demonstrations" in which bands, DJs and rappers perform from the backs of trucks that lead demonstrators through the streets. Projecting their emotive music through urban space with the aid of powerful sound systems, these demonstrations disrupt the everyday noises of the neoliberal city and create a public space for the vocalisation of dissent. After the demonstrations, these same artists and demonstrators move to the underground live houses and social centres that constitute a subterranean backbone to the visible demonstrations in the street. Expressing emotions through musical protest is a powerful motor for what Stevphen Shukatitis has called affective composition, the process via which collective political subjectivities are formed through the expression of shared emotions. This paper outlines the emotional geography of anti-nuclear music in post-Fukushima Tokyo. It examines the dynamic interplay between aboveground political protest and the city's subterranean network of musical performance spaces.
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In May 2011, just one month after the 3/11 triple-disaster, the Chim↑Pom artist collective conduc... more In May 2011, just one month after the 3/11 triple-disaster, the Chim↑Pom artist collective conducted an unauthorised installation of a panel depicting the crippled nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant next to Okamoto Tarō’s large-scale mural Myth of Tomorrow in Shibuya railway station. In this paper I read the installation as a commentary on the history of nuclear power and anti-nuclear art in post-war Japan. This commentary reconnects the historical issue of nuclear weapons with contemporary debates about nuclear power.
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Book Reviews by Alexander Brown
Disaster, Infrastructure and Society, 2018
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This English translation of Karatani Kōjin's History and Repetion, principally translated by lite... more This English translation of Karatani Kōjin's History and Repetion, principally translated by literature scholar Seiji M. Lippit, is based on the Iwanami Shoten volume Rekisihi to hanpuku published in 2004. It joins the growing number of Karatani's works available in English translation that have helped make him one of the few contemporary Japanese critical theorists whose work is well known outside Japan.
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In Gender and Labour in Korea and Japan, editors Ruth Barraclough and Elyssa Faison have brought... more In Gender and Labour in Korea and Japan, editors Ruth Barraclough and Elyssa Faison have brought together a number of studies which explore the relationship between gender and class. This interdisciplinary collection includes contributions from the fields of literary studies, cultural studies, anthropology and labour history. The studies focus on industrial and sexual labour and the legacies of colonialism in Korea and Japan. The case studies span a large period from an analysis of the 1925 proletarian novel The Prostitute to recent anthropological work on Korean hostess clubs in Japan. By examining gender and class over an extended historical period the studies demonstrate the ongoing connection of gender and class in modernity.
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Online Articles by Alexander Brown
Fifteen thousand people turned out on Sunday the 10th of April, 2011 for the "Genpatsu Yamero" (S... more Fifteen thousand people turned out on Sunday the 10th of April, 2011 for the "Genpatsu Yamero" (Stop Nuclear Power) demonstration in Tokyo to protest against nuclear power. It was one month since the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami had devastated Japan's north-eastern Tōhoku region and triggered an explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The demonstration was not widely reported in the mainstream Japanese media, but it attracted worldwide attention via the internet. A little more than a year later the numbers on the streets had swollen to more than one hundred thousand as people gathered at anti-nuclear protests outside the Prime Minister's Residence in Tokyo on the 29th of June, 2012, where they moved from the pavement into the streets in defiance of police.
Music has been one of the movement’s most powerful means of communication. At that first large demonstration on the 10th of April, protesters paraded to the sounds of marching bands, DJs, rappers, reggae musicians and punk and rock and roll bands that played from the back of trucks in the middle of the demonstration. Musicians shared their musical messages via social media. Fans became filmmakers and distributors, when they recorded the performances that took place during demonstrations and live shows, and uploaded them to video sharing sites. Musicians and fans organised concerts and live performances—from small underground shows to major festivals. A thriving culture of resistance through music has become a decisive feature of the anti-nuclear movement.
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When a major nuclear disaster occurred at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in March 2011 it was ... more When a major nuclear disaster occurred at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in March 2011 it was Japan’s growing body of casual and unemployed workers—sometimes referred to as the ‘precariat’ in recognition of the precarious nature of their lives and labours—who organised the first large-scale demonstrations in Tokyo.
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Books by Alexander Brown
This book explores the politics of anti-nuclear activism in Tokyo after the Fukushima nuclear dis... more This book explores the politics of anti-nuclear activism in Tokyo after the Fukushima nuclear disaster of March 2011. Analyzing the protests in the context of a longer history of citizen activism in Tokyo, it also situates the movement within the framework of a global struggle for democracy, from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street.
By examining the anti-nuclear movement at both urban and transnational scales, the book also reveals the complex geography of today’s globally connected social movements. It emphasizes the contestation of urban space by anti-nuclear activists in Tokyo and the weaving together of urban and cyber space in their praxis. By focusing on the cultural life of the movement—from its characteristic demonstration style to its blogs, zines and pamphlets—this book communicates activists’ voices in their own words. Based on excellent ethnographic research, it concludes that the anti-nuclear protests in Tokyo after the Fukushima disaster have redefined social movement politics for a new era.
Providing an analysis of a unique period in Japan’s contemporary urban history from the perspective of eyewitness observations, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese Politics, Sociology and Japanese Studies in general.
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Conference Papers by Alexander Brown
In this paper I outline philosopher and literary critic Karatani Kōjin's theoretical reflections... more In this paper I outline philosopher and literary critic Karatani Kōjin's theoretical reflections on the recent wave of anti-nuclear protests in Japan. Karatani uses the notion of "a society in which people demonstrate" to describe the form of direct democracy he sees emerging in the anti- nuclear movement. I critically engage with Karatani's historiography of democracy and demonstrations in Japan and explain that his sometimes historically inaccurate views are a reflection of his own ambivalent and changing relationship with street politics. I then explore the contradictions between Karatani's stated view that demonstrations are a relatively new and weak part of the Japanese polity and his attempt to ground the broader notion of "a society in which people demonstrate" in indigenous Japanese democratic traditions. Finally, I explain how through his recent studies of ancient Greek political thought Karatani has tried to carve out a pre-history for the form of participatory democracy he expresses through the notion of "a society in which people demonstrate". I conclude by pointing to the centrality of democracy in the face of the clear limitations of parliamentary government exposed by the Fukushima disaster within the context of a global crisis of faith in existing democratic institutions.
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Chapters by Alexander Brown
The Practice of Freedom Anarchism, Geography, and the Spirit of Revolt, 2016
Part of a trilogy of volumes on anarchist geographies, this book examines a range of social and s... more Part of a trilogy of volumes on anarchist geographies, this book examines a range of social and spatial practices to examine the potential of left-libertarian principles in geography.
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Academic Articles by Alexander Brown
Book Reviews by Alexander Brown
Online Articles by Alexander Brown
Music has been one of the movement’s most powerful means of communication. At that first large demonstration on the 10th of April, protesters paraded to the sounds of marching bands, DJs, rappers, reggae musicians and punk and rock and roll bands that played from the back of trucks in the middle of the demonstration. Musicians shared their musical messages via social media. Fans became filmmakers and distributors, when they recorded the performances that took place during demonstrations and live shows, and uploaded them to video sharing sites. Musicians and fans organised concerts and live performances—from small underground shows to major festivals. A thriving culture of resistance through music has become a decisive feature of the anti-nuclear movement.
Books by Alexander Brown
By examining the anti-nuclear movement at both urban and transnational scales, the book also reveals the complex geography of today’s globally connected social movements. It emphasizes the contestation of urban space by anti-nuclear activists in Tokyo and the weaving together of urban and cyber space in their praxis. By focusing on the cultural life of the movement—from its characteristic demonstration style to its blogs, zines and pamphlets—this book communicates activists’ voices in their own words. Based on excellent ethnographic research, it concludes that the anti-nuclear protests in Tokyo after the Fukushima disaster have redefined social movement politics for a new era.
Providing an analysis of a unique period in Japan’s contemporary urban history from the perspective of eyewitness observations, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese Politics, Sociology and Japanese Studies in general.
Conference Papers by Alexander Brown
Chapters by Alexander Brown
Music has been one of the movement’s most powerful means of communication. At that first large demonstration on the 10th of April, protesters paraded to the sounds of marching bands, DJs, rappers, reggae musicians and punk and rock and roll bands that played from the back of trucks in the middle of the demonstration. Musicians shared their musical messages via social media. Fans became filmmakers and distributors, when they recorded the performances that took place during demonstrations and live shows, and uploaded them to video sharing sites. Musicians and fans organised concerts and live performances—from small underground shows to major festivals. A thriving culture of resistance through music has become a decisive feature of the anti-nuclear movement.
By examining the anti-nuclear movement at both urban and transnational scales, the book also reveals the complex geography of today’s globally connected social movements. It emphasizes the contestation of urban space by anti-nuclear activists in Tokyo and the weaving together of urban and cyber space in their praxis. By focusing on the cultural life of the movement—from its characteristic demonstration style to its blogs, zines and pamphlets—this book communicates activists’ voices in their own words. Based on excellent ethnographic research, it concludes that the anti-nuclear protests in Tokyo after the Fukushima disaster have redefined social movement politics for a new era.
Providing an analysis of a unique period in Japan’s contemporary urban history from the perspective of eyewitness observations, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese Politics, Sociology and Japanese Studies in general.