Igniting Identity: the Rape That Shook Okinawa

The brutal rape of a twelve-year-old Okinawan girl in 1995 enraged the local population and led to a chain of unprecedented events, which endangered the relationship between the US and Japan. International media soon reported on the outrage as merely an expression of anti-US sentiments, but although the violent crime was acted out by three US servicemen, Tokyo was to receive the blame. Igniting Identity reveals a hidden meaning of the raped girl as a powerful symbol of identity and challenges the notion of Japan as an homogenous nation. Strømmen explores how Okinawans emphasize post- material values like peace, democracy, spirituality, environment and women`s rights in defining a separate identity to mainland Japan. The term trichotomization is introduced to show how this identity process became an important tool in recruiting the US as an ideological ally to help Okinawa achieve its goals with Tokyo. By emphasizing the historical, social and political context of the chain of events that followed the rape, Igniting Identity will appeal to scholars in communication studies, social anthropology, history, and politics.