The Proletarian Gamble: Korean Workers in Interwar Japan by Ken C. Kawashima (En

Description: The Proletarian Gamble by Ken C. Kawashima A Marxist interpretation of Korean migrant workers struggles in Japan during the 1920s and 1930s. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description Koreans constituted the largest colonial labor force in imperial Japan during the 1920s and 1930s. Caught between the Scylla of agricultural destitution in Korea and the Charybdis of industrial depression in Japan, migrant Korean peasants arrived on Japanese soil amid extreme instability in the labor and housing markets. In The Proletarian Gamble, Ken C. Kawashima maintains that contingent labor is a defining characteristic of capitalist commodity economies. He scrutinizes how the labor power of Korean workers in Japan was commodified, and how these workers both fought against the racist and contingent conditions of exchange and combated institutionalized racism.Kawashima draws on previously unseen archival materials from interwar Japan as he describes how Korean migrants struggled against various recruitment practices, unfair and discriminatory wages, sudden firings, racist housing practices, and excessive bureaucratic red tape. Demonstrating that there was no single Korean "minority," he reveals how Koreans exploited fellow Koreans and how the stratification of their communities worked to the advantage of state and capital. However, Kawashima also describes how, when migrant workers did organize-as when they became involved in Roso (the largest Korean communist labor union in Japan) and in Zenkyo (the Japanese communist labor union)-their diverse struggles were united toward a common goal. In The Proletarian Gamble, his analysis of the Korean migrant workers experiences opens into a much broader rethinking of the fundamental nature of capitalist commodity economies and the analytical categories of the proletariat, surplus populations, commodification, and state power. Notes A Marxist interpretation of Korean migrant workers struggles in Japan during the 1920s and 1930s Author Biography Ken C. Kawashima is Associate Professor of East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto. Table of Contents Introduction: The Proletarian Gamble 11. The Birth of the Uncontrollable Colonial Surplus: A Prehistory of the Korean Problem 252. The Colonial Surplus and the Virtual Pauper 453. Intermediary Exploitation: Korean Workers in the Day Labor Market 674. Urban Expropriation and the Threat of the Outside: Korean Tenant Struggles against Housing Insecurity 945. The Obscene, Violent Supplement of State Power: Korean Welfare and Class Warfare in Interwar Japan 1306. At the Gates of Unemployment: The Struggles of Unemployed Korean Workers 169Epilogue 204Appendix 1. Korean Self-help and Social Work Organizations in Japan 217Appendix 2. A Timeline of Anti-Saikai Activity 227Notes 231Bibliography 269Index 287 Review "This book establishes Ken C. Kawashima not simply as one of the best students of modern Japanese history in the world, but as one with a rare facility for effective use of theory amid a plethora of primary sources in Japanese and Korean. This book illustrates at once a very detailed daily life of Korean day workers in various Japanese cities, a study thoroughly at home with both modern Japanese and Korean history, and an author who is fully versed in a wide body of theory--Marx, Benjamin, Althusser, Foucault, eiuek, and many others. It is simply the best book in East Asian history that I have read in many years."--Bruce Cumings, University of Chicago "The Proletarian Gamble is the most penetrating analysis of Japanese discrimination against the Koreans that I know of; its scope goes well beyond the confines of Japanese social history or Marxist historiography. Ken C. Kawashima shows how state agencies sought to fulfill the humanistic claims of Japanese colonialism by individualizing the Korean workers and integrating them into the multiethnic nation: they took advantage of the workers contingent life conditions. By viewing racism as an aspect of the micropolitics of individualization and totalization, Kawashima criticizes the foundational premises of liberalism and the institutionalized framework in which much of area studies is still conducted."--Naoki Sakai, author of Translation and Subjectivity: On "Japan" and Cultural Nationalism Promotional A Marxist interpretation of Korean migrant workers struggles in Japan during the 1920s and 1930s Review Quote "[T]his book struck me not only for its stimulating methodologies, but also for its careful empirical observation. This seems to me to be a relatively rare and praiseworthy combination in any academic setting." - Jae-Won Sun, Pacific Affairs Promotional "Headline" A Marxist interpretation of Korean migrant workers struggles in Japan during the 1920s and 1930s Details ISBN0822344173 Author Ken C. Kawashima Short Title PROLETARIAN GAMBLE Publisher Duke University Press Language English ISBN-10 0822344173 ISBN-13 9780822344179 Media Book Format Paperback Year 2009 Imprint Duke University Press Subtitle Korean Workers in Interwar Japan Place of Publication North Carolina Country of Publication United States Illustrations 31 tables, 1 map, 6 figures UK Release Date 2009-04-17 AU Release Date 2009-04-17 NZ Release Date 2009-04-17 US Release Date 2009-04-17 Pages 312 Series Asia-Pacific: Culture, Politics, and Society Publication Date 2009-04-17 DEWEY 331.6251905209042 Audience Professional & Vocational We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:131532961;

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