Taught By:
Ra Mason
Sasakawa Associate Professor
Politics, Philosophy and Area Studies Department
University of East Anglia
Read profile here.
Motivation to Teach Social Action:
The ability to develop an innovative means by which to address long-standing issues of pressing importance.
Course Description:
The initial concept is to run a series of student-focused workshops that will take place in Nago (Okinawa) and Norwich (Norfolk), facilitated as part of our budding relationship (and MoU) between UEA and Meio University. This will have the purpose of providing a platform from which to raise awareness of, and engage directly with, the closely integrated issues of military bases and environmental sustainability on Okinawa. The workshops will have three core, interrelated, goals: 1) Get students at both institutions interested in the geo-politics and environmental sustainability of Okinawa; 2) Inspire students to engage in grassroots activism that aims to reduce the scale and scope of military basing on the Islands; 3) Empower students to assist in aiding environmentally sound reuse of marine and land-based assets returned by the (US) military.
