The Living Politics of Self-Help Movements in East Asia

"This collection elucidates the complexity of living politics in the 21st century, considering how self-help groups draw on shared regional traditions, and how they adapt their actions to the diverse formal political environments in which they operate. It considers the nexus between ideas and action in a world where the conventional 'right-left' divide has a decreasing hold on the political imagination. Examining grassroots self-help actions as responses to everyday life problems, it argues that whilst action may be initiated by encounters with ideas that come into the community from outside, often the flow of cause and effect works in the opposite direction. Focusing on countries both politically dynamic and with long-standing historical and cultural connections - China (including Inner Mongolia), Japan, Taiwan and Korea - this book fills a significant gap in the literature on social movements, demonstrating that survival itself is a political act."--Back cover Front Matter ....Pages i-x Introduction: Living Politics—Social Alternatives and the Crisis of Democracy (Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Shuge Wei)....Pages 1-14 Front Matter ....Pages 15-15 Concept Essay One: Ignoring the Attention-Seeking State (Tom Cliff)....Pages 17-27 Survival as Citizenship, or Citizenship as Survival? Imagined and Transient Political Groups in Urban China (Tom Cliff, Kan Wang)....Pages 29-55 Self-Help Is Political: How Organic Farming Creates an Autonomous Space Within the South Korean Nation State (Yon Jae Paik)....Pages 57-95 Front Matter ....Pages 97-97 Concept Essay Two: Leveraging Informal Networks for Survival Politics (Uchralt Otede)....Pages 99-106 Informal Grassland Protection Networks in Inner Mongolia (Uchralt Otede)....Pages 107-129 Forest, Music, and Farming: The Takae Anti-Helipad Movement and Everyday Life as Political Space (Shinnosuke Takahashi)....Pages 131-150 Front Matter ....Pages 151-151 Concept Essay Three: Alternative Value Creation (Shuge Wei, Tessa Morris-Suzuki)....Pages 153-161 The Dilemmas of Peach Blossom Valley: The Resurgence of Rice-Terrace Farming in Gongliao District, Taiwan (Shuge Wei)....Pages 163-187 The Neverending Story: Alternative Exchange and Living Politics in a Japanese Regional Community (Tessa Morris-Suzuki)....Pages 189-213 Epilogue: Improvising the Future (Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Shuge Wei)....Pages 215-218 Back Matter ....Pages 219-246