Networking Dissent Voices: Korea-Japan Civic Alliance for Olympic Resistance

Over the lasNetworking Dissent Voices: Korea-Japan Civic Alliance for Olympic Resistancet few years, Asian civic activists’ alliance has grown through Olympic events. This paper illustrates recent elaboration of Japan and South Korean cooperation networks for anti-Olympic movements. Social, environmental and sport-related NGOs and activist groups in Japan and Korea have collaborated for their anti-Olympic agenda around 2018 PyeongChang and 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. It draws on Japanese and Korean NGOs’ collaboration history including Japan’s earlier transpacific alliance with Rio Olympic resistance groups. We also collected the pressure groups’ public messages/performances, and interviews with the activists Ichimura and Lee. We examine and highlight previously neglected non-Western Olympic resistance, the alliance networks’ diverse forms of public opposition, protest, criticism, and their discursive strategies in Korea and Japan on the staging of the sport mega-events.