Occupy Tokyo: Sealds, the Forgotten Movement - Paperback

by Karen Grimwade (Translator), Anne Gonon (Author), Christian Galan (Author)

Japanese youth, like everywhere else, are trying to build their future despite the crises that are shaking their world, the latest being the triple disaster of Fukushima. Often considered to be more focused on a personal or even hedonistic life, they surprised the media when a student movement took the floor to criticize the Abe government's security and Self-Defense Forces bills in 2015. The so-called SEALDs movement (Student Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy) was formed some time after the Indigenous or Occupy Wall Street movements, but it shares similar concerns.
Understanding the SEALDs' experience from the perspective of John Dewey's philosophy allows us to highlight once again the dangers that digital technology poses to individuals, the collective and their values.

Author Biography

Anne Gonon, Ph.D. (1991), Paris 3-Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris), is a professor of social sciences at Dôshisha University (Kyoto, Japan). Her work lies at the interface of social and ethical issues, with a particular interest in gender and disaster in contemporary Japan, including (with C. Numata and K. Ochiai, eds) Seikatsu keishiki - kea toshiteno rinri (Forms of Life - Ethics as Care) (Kisazu 2021).

Christian Galan, Ph.D. (1997), Inalco (Paris), is a professor at the Toulouse-Jean Jaurès University and a researcher at the French Institute for Research on East Asia (Inalco/Paris-Cité University/CNRS). He is a specialist in the current Japanese educational system and in the history of education in Japan. His research also focuses on childhood and youth in modern and contemporary Japan, including (with P. Heinrich, eds), Being Young in Super-Aging Japan (Routledge, 2018).