Risk Society In Tropic Of Orange

The works of Karen Tei Yamashita were not well received by the Asian American critics mainly because her works do not focus solely on the Asian American group.With the development of globalization and transnational studies,however,there emerge more and more discussions about Yamashita's novels.Given that the characteristics of a late-modern risk society are as apt in Yamashita's L.A.as in Ulrich Beck's elaboration,the study reads Yamashita's Tropic of Orange(1992)from Ulrich Bec's risk society perspective.Under Ulrich Beck's risk society perspective,this dissertation concludes that Karen Tei Yamashita's Tropic of Orange depicts an LA on the verge of a risk society.This is supported by the changed nature of risks delineated in the novel:manufactured risks emerge gradually in the forms of environmental degradation,biohazards and the negative effects of economic globalization.Meanwhile,the distributional logic of the society has also shifted.As can be seen,in such an L.A.which is under the transition from an industrial to a risk society,the characters are both concerned about how to attain an equal share of the social resources and are also anxious about avoiding the manufactured risks.However,with the erosion of a welfare state and the failure of social institutions to regulate risks,which is evident in Buzzwonn's being the walking social service,and the mass media's misleading broadcasting of the toxic oranges accident,the characters comes to disengage themselves from such social instituions and their experience of risks is therefore individualized.Finally,the reactions of the characters towards the transitional society and the respective consequences are explored with Beck's concepts of clas position and risk position.The conlusion is that at the transitional stage of the society,reactions to risks based on the class position only is no longer quite adequate,which is the case of Rafeala,Buzzworm and Arcangel.The rising of risk communities that is based on the shared risk position of different groups,as is represented by Manzanar and the many other homeless conductors,offers a new possibility,i.e.,subpolitics,which tends to shape the society from below.