| This dissertation is an ethnography of transitions in the social and moral worlds of right-wing political activism in contemporary Japan. Rightist activism, including bellicose public oratory and violent direct action, is motivated by religious zeal, characterized by confrontational politics, and steeped in underworld criminality. These elements cohere in what I call the "politics of futility," a nativist political disposition that conjures the stoic, often failed sacrifices of national martyrs and allows activists to place themselves among that pantheon of heroes. If an aggressive style of engagement underlies their activism, it also ensures their political and social isolation. This embattled position at the margins of Japanese civil society is, however, what ultimately sustains their redressive activism: the politics of futility is at once a self-marginalizing and emancipatory mode of engagement.;In recent decades, extensive geo-political, economic, and social change disturbed the polarity of the reactionary stances that guided post-WWII rightist activism in Japan, calling into question the relationships between the strange bedfellows of industry, conservative political powers, religious groups, and organized criminal elements that had coalesced in postwar rightist politics. Amid the changing ideological terrain of Japanese society, its most uncivil actors have maintained a broad schema of political filiation through forms of performative public activism that both channels the imperial past and constitutes contemporary activist identities. Using modes of violent action and literary practices to celebrate it, rightists have retooled their activism to reanimate historical genealogies and motivate a diffuse, yet cohesive contemporary activist network.;Rightist activism operationalizes religious idioms of piousness and purity drawn from the civic-religious ideology of Imperial Japan. The tension between this "imperial subjecthood" and juridical forms of citizenship ensures that the peculiar marginality of activists is one imbued with power to act extra-legally. Narratives of violence and national commitment are circulated in literary practices such as hagiographic accounts of criminality, depictions of romantic martyrdom, and prolific auto-ethnographic writing which engender powerful models of Japanese masculinity and encourage self-sacrificial action. Although afforded a mobilizing mode of moral politics, rightist activists struggle with a double bind of modernity present in many contemporary fundamentalisms. Subjectively, they are the inheritors of the legacies of their forefathers; at the same time they are outsiders in contemporary Japan. Most compellingly motivated to "restore" mainstream society by maintaining a sense of distance from it, the strength of their social networks and zeal of their activism is dependent on the same heroic marginality.;This dissertation is based on data collected over two years of engagement with rightist political activism in Japan, including sustained interaction with multiple activist groups, extensive interviews with individual activists, and participation observation at sites of political activity in urban and regional areas. These include venues for public protest, demonstrations, and oratory; sites of commemoration and memorialization; and the informal spaces of family life, private group activities, and after-hours socialization. In addition, this dissertation draws upon publications created by rightists, including genres of popular literature, political tracts, and activist group-histories, and internet-based data, including websites, blogs, message boards, and other forms of social media. |
