Abstract:   

This paper explores how transnational solidarity networks are built and maintained between anti-base movement activists in South Korea, the United States and Okinawa. Based on in-depth interviews and ethnographic research I conducted in Gangjeong village, Jeju Island between 2013 and 2015, and focusing on a specific Catholic community resisting the Jeju Naval Base, I provide a fine-grained analysis of how these transnational solidarity networks develop and unfold on the ground. The literature on transnational solidarity networks is extensive, however not much of the literature focus on the role of religion, or prophetic activism in building and maintaining these solidarity networks. Transnational solidarity networks do not only help the movements spread and make allies, they also help the movement sustain itself, reinvent its identity and reinstitute its legitimacy. A central contribution that these networks provide is the setting of a transnational agenda linking the issues at hand with global concerns and giving activists and the movement a reach beyond the boundaries of their nation states. This paper seeks to highlight what happens when these transnational solidarity networks fundamentally share a religious worldview that connects them, a religious worldview that is entrenched in the political identity of the activists involved.