The Proletarian Gamble: Korean Workers in Interwar Japan

Ken C. Kawashima

Published by Duke University Press 2009

The Proletarian Gamble

Korean Workers in Interwar Japan

Ken C. Kawashima
Edited by: Rey Chow , Harry Harootunian and Masao Miyoshi

In the series Asia-Pacific: Culture, Politics, and Society

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822392293

Overview
Contents

About this book

A Marxist interpretation of Korean migrant workers struggles in Japan during the 1920s and 1930s.

Author / Editor information

Ken C. Kawashima is Associate Professor of East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto.

Reviews

“The Proletarian Gamble provides students of modern Japanese-Korean history with a meticulously researched window into the lives of Korean labor migrants to Japan. Kawashima’s efforts will prove invaluable to students of Korean-Japanese affairs, but also to those interested in labor and migration issues, as well. This book should be required reading for all who enjoy the convenience of Japan’s extensive railway network, given the critical role that the Koreans described within played in laying much of its foundation.” - Mark E. Caprio, Acta Koreana

“[F]irst-rate, indispensible reading on Korean workers in the Japanese empire. . .” - Jinhee Lee, Journal of Asian Studies

“Ken Kawashima’s book The Proletarian Gamble is a much needed and long overdue contribution to the fields of labor history and zainichi (resident-Korean) studies in Japan. . . . Kawashima offer[s] his readers a highly nuanced, eye-opening account of the experience of Korean day labor, and the role that particular institutions played in shaping that experience.” - Samuel Perry, International Journal of Asian Studies

“[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

“This book is at once refreshingly old-fashioned and innovative. . . . Kawashima’s study is generally persuasive, in places brilliant. . . . [I]n foregrounding contingency and offering a careful theoretical grounding for his analysis, Kawashima has achieved a great deal.” - Andrew Gordon, Journal of Social History

“Kawashima has delivered a well-researched social history that should be added to the reading list of all serious students of modern Korea and Japan.” - Christopher Gerteis, American Historical 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, Žižek, 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 provides students of modern Japanese-Korean history with a meticulously researched window into the lives of Korean labor migrants to Japan. Kawashima’s efforts will prove invaluable to students of Korean-Japanese affairs, but also to those interested in labor and migration issues, as well. This book should be required reading for all who enjoy the convenience of Japan’s extensive railway network, given the critical role that the Koreans described within played in laying much of its foundation.”

-- Mark E. Caprio Acta Koreana

“[F]irst-rate, indispensible reading on Korean workers in the Japanese empire. . .”

-- Jinhee Lee Journal of Asian Studies

“[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

“Kawashima has delivered a well-researched social history that should be added to the reading list of all serious students of modern Korea and Japan.”

-- Christopher Gerteis American Historical Review

“Ken Kawashima’s book The Proletarian Gamble is a much needed and long overdue contribution to the fields of labor history and zainichi (resident-Korean) studies in Japan. . . . Kawashima offer[s] his readers a highly nuanced, eye-opening account of the experience of Korean day labor, and the role that particular institutions played in shaping that experience.”

-- Samuel Perry International Journal of Asian Studies

“This book is at once refreshingly old-fashioned and innovative. . . . Kawashima’s study is generally persuasive, in places brilliant. . . . [I]n foregrounding contingency and offering a careful theoretical grounding for his analysis, Kawashima has achieved a great deal.”

-- Andrew Gordon Journal of Social History

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction The Proletarian Gamble Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. The Birth of the Uncontrollable Colonial Surplus A Prehistory of the Korean Problem Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	25
2. The Colonial Surplus and the Virtual Pauper Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
3. Intermediary Exploitation Korean Workers in the Day Labor Market Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	67
4. Urban Expropriation and the Threat of the Outside Korean Tenant Struggles against Housing Insecurity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	94
5. The Obscene, Violent Supplement of State Power Korean Welfare and Class Warfare in Interwar Japan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	130
6. At the Gates of Unemployment The Struggles of Unemployed Korean Workers Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	169
Epilogue Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	204
Appendix 1 Korean Self-help and Social Work Organizations in Japan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	217
Appendix 2 A Timeline of Anti-Sōaikai Activity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	269
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	287

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 308
Illustrations
- Other: 31 tables, 1 map, 6 figures

eBook

Published: April 17, 2009
ISBN: 9780822392293