沖繩(日本) 基地村의 形成과 美軍-住民 關係: 金武町의 新開地를 중심으로

Abstract

This paper focuses on a “base town”located in the central part of Okinawa, Japan. The base town means a town geographically and functionally related to the US military base. The part of the town(Kin village) is called Shinkaichi(newly developed land) closely located to the Camp Hansen(US marine camp). In this base town, there are three different groups of people: US marines from the camp, Okinawan natives(including some Japanese from mainland) in the homeland, and Filipino women(including some other internationals) working at the American bar system. My immediate question to deal with this ethnographic issue of the base town is; how the base town is differently recognized by these three groups? How do they compete, utilize, cooperate with each other? Finally the base town is perceived as a social entity in relation with the US military bases overseas now and future in this world. The base economy with the military`s“ rest and recreation”(R & R) policy created a massive service industry, of which a large part was mainly catered to the military personnel. In Kin village, effects of the base economy were apparent in all the three categories. First, the money from the leasing of lands to the military base, which started in 1953, became a stable income source for the village and individual land owners. Secondly, the presence of the base created employment opportunities for the village people on and off the base as maids, construction workers, and gardeners. The base-related occupations were replacing the village`s traditional occupations of agriculture and timber. Thirdly, the base economy created a service industry in the Shinkaichi section which bars, clubs, and brothels were built for military personnel. While most of these bars and clubs sold drinks and foods, prostitution was part of the Shinkaichi`s economy. The creation of this service industry was very significant to the village people in the sense that it created totally new occupations such as bar owners and hostesses and brought about a demographic change in the population of the village. The presence of the base is often associated by the townspeople with the high rates of criminal incidents caused by military personnel and military accidents in the town. To deal with such accidents and incidents caused by the military and military personnel, the town office and many townspeople take actions of protest whenever such problems occur. However, most of the townspeople perceive that their protest has not been effective in preventing occurrence of such incidents and accidents. Moreover, the town has nation-widely been acknowledged as an image of dark and crime-based related with the military personnels even through the national media. I would like to make one more comment to look into this base especially concerning about the military personnels. Military personnels themselves have their own family and most of them have been called on through certain system of recruitment in the context of national security and so on. They themselves are mostly victimized in the international politics. If we eliminate military personnels` position in consideration of the base town and related military camp society, we would again victimize the victims in international politics at certain ways.