While suicide occurs in numbers across countries, it has rarely been used as a form of collective action. In South Korea, however, a total of 107 protesters died from the act of committing suicide, most notably by means of self-immolation, in protest against injustice in the country. While they are regarded as political "martyrs," it remains unclear why they committed suicide and what they wanted to achieve with this highly unusual and costly form of protest. The paper addresses this largely (...) neglected issue by examining the suicide notes left by 48 Korean suicide protesters. The findings reveal that at least in Korea suicide protest was used not only as a from of protest and resistance, but also as an unusual form of micromobilization of mobilizing "consensus" and "action" among halfhearted activists and apathetic bystanders, by accusing the political and economic system as unjust and illegitimate, by identifying the apathy and inaction of the people as the main culprit for persistent injustice, and by urging and shaming the target audience to join a movement. The model presented here of suicide protest as a form of micromobilization provides a useful conceptual framework with which to compare seemingly diverse incidents of suicide protest across countries. (shrink)

This paper examines the increasingly popular chisan-chisho movement that has promoted the localization of food consumption in Japan since the late-1990s. Chisan-chisho emerged in the context of a perceived crisis in the Japanese food system, particularly the long-term decline of agriculture and rural community and more recent episodes of food scandals. Although initially started as a grassroots movement, many chisan-chisho initiatives are now organized by governments and farmers’ cooperatives. Acknowledging that the chisan-chisho movement has added some important resources and a (...) conceptual framework, we nonetheless point out that chisan-chisho has been refashioned as a producer movement by government as well as the Japan Agricultural Cooperative, capitalizing on local food’s marketing appeal. Chisan-chisho to date has not been able to become a full-fledged citizen-based political mobilization nor address the issue of marginality in the food system. (shrink)