This page features scholars in the US and around the world who are researching a variety of Okinawa-related topics. Hopefully, the information on this page will facilitate connecting Okinawa researchers to increase solidarity and visibility of Okinawan Studies. We will keep expanding this list. If you would like to be listed in this directory, please send us your information in this questionnaire.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
B
Prof. Beata Bochorodycz
Institution: Adam Mickiewicz University (Poland)
Languages: English, Japanese, Polish
Ongoing Research/Projects related to Okinawa: Military bases, US-Japan alliance, Social movements
Recent Publications related to Okinawa:
“Political Leadership and the Security Policy: Negotiations on the U.S. Military Bases in Okinawa Under the Murayama and Hashimoto Cabinets,” in Karol Zakowski, ed. Changing Determinants of Foreign Policy in East Asian Countries (Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2017): 89-114.
“Social Movements in Okinawa Since 1945: Was the Reversion a Threshold in the Development of Civil Society?”, in Ina Hein and Isabelle Prochaska, eds. Negotiating the Okinawan Difference in Japan Today (Beiträge zur Japanologie 44) (Vienna: Universität Wien, 2015): 71-95.
“Higashi Ajia ni okeru shimin shakai: Okinawa jugon hogo undō o chūshin ni” [Civil Society in East Asia: Okinawa Dugong Protection Movement],” in Oga Toru, ed. Hokutō Ajia no shimin shakai: Tōki to chūtai [Civil society in North-East Asia: Entwurf and solidarity]. (Kokusai Shoin, 2013).「東アジアにおける地域市民社会―沖縄ジュゴン保護運動を中心に」『北東アジアの市民社会―投企と紐帯』国際書院.
Dr. Ryan Buyco
Institution: California Polytechnic State University
Languages: English, Japanese, Tagalog
Ongoing Research/Project related to Okinawa: I am currently working on a book project tentatively titled, "Island Under the Sun: Filipino American Detours in Okinawa".
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
“Islands of Thought: Oceanic Filipinx Studies from Morro Bay to Okinawa” Alon: Journal for Filipinx American and Diaspora Studies (Forthcoming)
“‘Finding New Routes’: Visualizing an Oceanic Okinawa in Laura Kina’s Holding On (2019),” Verge: Studies in Global Asias, vol. 9, no. 1, 2023.
“Davao Pilgrimage by Sakiyama Asao (with Translator’s Introduction).” Translated from Japanese. Critical Ethnic Studies Journal, special issue on “Center-to-Center Relationalities: At the Nexus of Pacific Island Studies and Trans-Pacific Studies,” vol. 7, no. 2, 2021
“pacific thoughts.” 2021.
“Afterlives of the Okinawan Community in Davao, Mindanao: Sakiyama Asao’s ‘Davao Pilgrimage’ (1997).” The International Journal of Okinawan Studies, vol. 8, 2017, pp. 27-41.
D
Dr. Christopher Davis
Institution: University of the Ryukyus
Languages: English, Japanese
Ongoing Research/Project related to Okinawa: Description and documentation of the Yaeyaman language
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
Pragmatic constraints on subject-oriented honorifics in Yaeyaman and Japanese, Plurality and distributivity in Yaeyaman wh-questions
Dr. Tomoyoshi Doi
Institution: University of the Ryukyus
Languages: Japanese, English
Ongoing Research/Projects related to Okinawa: History of Okinawa, Historical Sociology, Immigration Studies
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
"Forgetting the Creation of ‘Citizens’ in Okinawa under the U. S. Occupation: From a ‘Deportee’ perspective," presented at Research Institute for Islands and Sustainability, University of the Ryukyus (Webinar), February 23, 2021.
「〈別の戦後日本〉としての琉球列島 ――非琉球人管理制度の成立過程を通して考える――」（『歴史学研究』第1015号、2021年10月増刊）135-144頁。
G
Mr. Carl Gabrielson
Institution: University of California, Santa Barbara
Languages: English, Japanese
Ongoing Research/Project related to Okinawa: U.S. Military cultural education and cultural exchange programs in Japan
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
“Welcome to Japan! How U.S. Marine Corps Orientation Materials Erase, Coopt, and Dismiss Local Resistance,” Journal of American-East Asian Relations 26, no. 4 (December 2019).
"在日米軍の「サムライファンタジー」と「子供扱い」：日本文化を変えて行く軍事的男性性" [The United States Forces Japan’s Samurai Fantasy and Childish Treatment: Reshaping Japanese Culture through Militarized Masculinity], presented at the School of Law and Economics, Okinawa University, July 26 and August 28, 2019.
“Kingdom, Colony, Ken, or Country? Okinawan History and the Politics of Difference,” presented at the Lakeland Lecture Series, Lakeland University Japan, March 19, 2019.
Dr. Eduardo González de la Fuente
Institution: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Email for Eduardo González de la Fuente
Website for Eduardo González de la Fuente
Eduardo González de la Fuente ResearchGate Profile
Languages: English, Spanish, Catalan
Ongoing Research/Projects Related to Okinawa: Karate as a practical metaphor central to the Okinawa-Japan-U.S. relations; Okinawan studies in the Hispanic and Latin-American context, Okinawa in pop culture.
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
‘Religion and Identity in Karate: Politics amidst Okinawan Heritage and Japanese Sport.’ In Religion and Sport in Japan, edited by Zach Smith, Dennis Frost, and Stephen Covell, 188-220. University of Hawai’i Press, 2024 (forthcoming in September).
‘Recentering the Cartographies of Karate: Martial Arts Tourism in Okinawa.’ Ido Journal of Martial Arts Anthropology 21.3 (2021): 51-66.
‘In which Ways is Karate(dō) Japanese? A Consideration on Cultural Images of Bushidō and Nihonjinron in the Postwar Globalization of Martial Arts.’ Journal of Inter-Regional Studies: Regional and Global Perspectives at Waseda University 4 (2021): 15-30.
‘From Olympic Sport to UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage: Okinawa Karate Between Local, National and International Identities in Contemporary Japan,’ co-authored with Andreas Niehaus. In Traditional Martial Arts as Intangible Cultural Heritage (Living Heritage Series), edited by Park Seong-Yong and Ryu Seok-Yeol, (2020): 41-55. UNESCO-ICM.
H
Dr. Madoka Hammine
Institution: Meio University
Languages: English, Japanese
Ongoing Research/Projects Related to Okinawa: Language reclamation and revitalization of Ryukyuan languages
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
(2023). New Speakers of Ryukyuan language:Negotiation, Construction, and Change of Identities. In Kubota, R., Mielick M., & Lawrence, L. (Eds.) Handbook of Japanese Language, Identity and Culture. Palgrave.
Mr. Brandon Marc Higa
Institution: University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa William S. Richardson School of Law
Twitter handle: @SalamanderEsq
Languages: English, Japanese
Ongoing Research/Projects related to Okinawa: Dissertation (working title): Hiroji Yamashiro’s Arrest & Detention: Exploring Japan’s Freedom of Speech and Peaceful Assembly Rights within the Context of National Security and Okinawa’s Anti-War Movement
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
“Okinawa and Human Rights Scholarship in the Law and Japan Field: A Bibliographic Compilation,” Asian-Pacific Law and Policy Journal 22, no. 1 (2020) (forthcoming).
“Unpacking Okinawa’s ‘Suitcase Murder’: Expanded Japanese Criminal Jurisdiction of U.S. Civilian Contractors Under the 2017 SOFA Supplemental Agreement,” Asian-Pacific Law and Policy Journal 21, no. 2 (2020).
I
Dr. Pedro Iacobelli
Institution: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Languages: English, Japanese, Spanish; French; Polish (basic)
Ongoing Research/Projects related to Okinawa: Postwar migration to South America
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa: Postwar Emigration to South America from Japan and the Ryukyu Islands (2017)
Ms. Sam Ikehara
Institution: University of Southern California
Twitter handle: @samikehara
Languages: English, Japanese
Ongoing Research/Projects related to Okinawa: Legacies of war and empire in Okinawa, the racialization of Okinawan people, memories of the Battle of Okinawa, Okinawan conceptions of peace, environmental justice in Okinawa
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa: "The Sound of Peace: Noise Pollution and an Okinawan Poetics of Wind," article in progress. Panelist on "Antimilitarism in the Pacific Islands."
Dr. Fumi Inoue
Institution: Waseda University
Languages: English, Japanese
Ongoing Research/Projects related to Okinawa: The Okinawa-Japan-U.S. relationship, base politics, the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement.
My book manuscript, The Politics of Extraterritoriality in Post-Occupation Japan and U.S.-Occupied Okinawa, 1952-1972, explores how the politics surrounding the U.S. military’s policy of maximizing national jurisdiction over its service members’ cases committed on foreign soil unfolded in Japan—as a former colonial empire—and Okinawa as a borderland for both nations with imperial legacies. The book focuses on the formative period of the Japan-U.S. security relationship, during which the two nations’ policy elites learned how to contain Japanese nationalism and sustain U.S. exceptionalism by normalizing unconstitutional policy making and embarking in 1972 on a joint spatial reordering of the uneven basing structure, single-handedly operated by Washington before then. It is a project of transnational history, transimperial history, and what I call a diplomatic history from below.
I am also working on an article about Thomas Taro Higa (1916-1985), a second-generation Okinawan-Hawai’ian who grew up in Okinawa and Japan before serving in the U.S. military during World War II. This research examines how Higa negotiated his Okinawan identity alongside his Nisei nationalism and transformed himself into a “model Nisei” within the historical context of the U.S. war mobilization and the state’s inclusionary racism. In other words, it interrogates the intricate dynamics and tension between structure and subjectivity.
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
“The Politics of Extraterritoriality in Post-Occupation Japan and U.S.-Occupied Okinawa, 1952-1972,” Ph.D. dissertation, (Boston College, 2021).
“Rethinking the Power of the Voiceless: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Birth of Popular Human Rights Activism in Occupied Okinawa,” in Halina Zaiszová and Martin Lavička, eds. The Voiced and Voiceless in Asia. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, 2023, pp. 235-261.
“Japanese Solidarity with U.S.-Occupied Okinawa in the 1950s: Historical Reflections on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Reversion of Okinawa to Japan,” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus. Vol. 20, Issue 10, No. 9 (May 18, 2022).
K
Dr. Kei Kohagura
Institution: Okinawa International University
Languages: Japanese, English
Ongoing Research/Project related to Okinawa: Historical Sociology, Modern and Contemporary History of Okinawa
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
前田勇樹、古波藏契、秋山道宏編『つながる沖縄近現代史：沖縄のいまを考えるための一五章と二〇のコラム』ボーダーインク、2021年11月
「沖縄戦後史研究における「島ぐるみ」の問題」『歴史学研究』 (1006) 2021年2月
「米国は一九六五年の宮古農民「暴動」をどう見たか」『沖縄文化研究』 (47) 2020年3月
「平恒次の沖縄自立論」『明治学院大学社会学部付属研究所年報』 (49) 2019年3月
M
Dr. Yuki Maeda
Institution: University of The Ryukyus
Research Map | リサーチマップ, YouTube 沖縄歴史倶楽部チャンネル
Languages: Japanese
Ongoing Research/Projects related to Okinawa: History of Ryukyu Islands
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
前田勇樹『沖縄初期県政の政治と社会』榕樹書林、2021年4月
前田勇樹、古波藏契、秋山道宏編『つながる沖縄近現代史：沖縄のいまを考えるための一五章と二〇のコラム』ボーダーインク、2021年11月
Dr. Asako Masubuchi
Institution: Doshisha University
Languages: Japanese, English
Ongoing Research/Projects related to Okinawa: Cold War Studies, Transpacific Studies, Okinawa History
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
"Stamping Out the ‘Nation-Ruining Disease’: Anti-Tuberculosis Campaigns in US-Occupied Okinawa," Social History of Medicine, Volume 34, Issue 4, November 2021, Pages 1116–1137.
“Nursing the U.S. Occupation: Okinawan Public Health Nurses in U.S.-Occupied Okinawa.” In Pedro Iacobelli and Hiroko Matsuda, eds. Beyond American occupation: Race and Agency in Okinawa, 1945-2015. Lexington Books (Rowman and Littlefield).
Dr. Stanislaw Meyer
Institution: Jagiellonian University
Languages: English, Polish
Ongoing Research/Projects related to Okinawa: Meiji Okinawa
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
"Between a Forgotten Colony and an Abandoned Prefecture: Okinawa’s Experience of Becoming Japanese in the Meji and Taishō Eras," The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 18, no. 20 (2020).
Ms. Akiko Mori
Institution: Doshisha University
Languages: English, Japanese
Ongoing Research/Projects related to Okinawa:
Migration from Okinawa to Micronesia under Japanese Rule, Settler Colonialism, Memories of the WW2
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
“A History of the Excluded : Rethinking Sugar Industry in the Northern Mariana Islands under Japanese rule”, Historische Anthropologie, vol.27, (2019).
Mr. Scott Musgraves-Takeda
Institution: University of Melbourne
Email for Scott Musgraves-Takeda
Website for Scott Musgraves-Takeda
Twitter handle: @scottymasutake
Languages: English, Japanese
Ongoing Research/Projects related to Okinawa: Okinawan environmental civil society
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
“Protecting the Environment from the US Military: Okinawan Civil Society Actors and the Barriers to Change.” Melbourne Asia Review (blog). November 21, 2022.
“Okinawa to wakamono: fukigo sedai to beigunkichi no mirai [Okinawa and Youth: The post-reversion generation and the future of the US Military Bases].” In Seoul, Republic of Korea: Modern Japanese Studies Consortium.
“Environmental Civic Groups and Cooperation across Causes in Contemporary Okinawa.” In Melbourne, Australia.
N
Dr. Nozomi Nakaganeku-Saito
Institution: Amherst College
Email for Nozomi Nakaganeku-Saito
Website for Nozomi Nakaganeku-Saito
Languages: English, Japanese
Ongoing Research/Projects related to Okinawa: Loochoo/Ryukyuan/Okinawan Indigeneity, US militarism, Japanese settler colonialism, natural history, ecology, community stories
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
"Bone and Coral: Ossuopower and the Control of (Future) Remains in Occupied Okinawa," American Quarterly 74, no. 3 (September 2022): 567-589, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/865413
Dr. Chihiro Narita
Institution: Ritsumeikan University Kinugasa Research Organization
Languages: Japanese, Korean
Ongoing Research/Projects related to Okinawa: Postwar History of Okinawa, History of International Relations in East Asia
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
『沖縄返還と東アジア冷戦体制―琉球／沖縄の帰属・基地問題の変容』（人文書院、2020年）
O
Dr. Shoko Oshiro
Institution: Okinawa International University
Languages: English, Japanese, Thai
Ongoing Research/Projects related to Okinawa: Colonialism, self-determination, Indigenous rights, land rights, right of return, US military base issues, peace philosophy etc
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
「現代における先住民族居住地の軍事的再植民地化―ハワイ、ディエゴガルシア、沖縄」大阪大学博士論文（2019年２月）
R
Mr. Hilson Reidpath
Institution: University of Hawai'i at Manoa
Languages: English, Japanese
Ongoing Research/Projects related to Okinawa: Movement and Migration in Okinawan Literature and Media
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
“The Legacy of Perry’s Ryukyuan Voyages as Seen in Okinawan Literature”, 2023 AAS-in-Asia, Daegu, South Korea
“Medoruma Shun: An Okinawan Voice of Unrest” in Contemporary Japanese Literature (Critical Insights Series), Salem Press, 2017
S
Dr. Risako Sakai
Institution: Oregon State University
Languages: English, Japanese, French
Ongoing Research/Projects related to Okinawa: Marin Conservation, Indigenous Resurgence, Social Justice Activism, Decolonizing and Indigenous Methodologies, Solidarity through Ocean
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
Ichariba Choodee Podcast EPISODE 13 🌺 Okinawa (mis) Representation in Media
Dr. Travis Seifman
Institution: University of Tokyo Historiographical Institution
Twitter handle: @toranosukev
Languages: English, Japanese
Ongoing Research/Projects related to Okinawa: MA Art History thesis and PhD dissertation on Ryukyu Kingdom's embassies to Edo (1644-1850). Also currently working on projects looking at the kingdom's embassy to Tokyo in 1872, and at various themes and topics related to the history of Shuri castle across the 20th-21st centuries.
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
“Displaying Foreignness for Prestige: Lūchūan Embassy Processions in Early Modern Japan, 1644-1850” in Richard Morris (ed.), Crossing Boundaries: Festival and Diplomatic Encounters in the Early Modern World, Brepols Publishing (forthcoming).
“The loss of Shuri castle is a devastating blow for the people of Okinawa”, Apollo International Art Magazine (November 2019).
“Islands of the Imagination: Hokusai's Eight Views of Ryūkyū” Andon 106 (December 2018).
Dr. Annmaria Shimabuku
Institution: New York University
Website for Annmaria Shimabuku
Languages: English, Japanese
Ongoing Research/Projects related to Okinawa:
Postwar miscegenation, postcolonial feminism, Ifa Fuyu, Okinawan Literature
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
Alegal: Biopolitics and the Unintelligibility of Okinawan Life (Fordham University Press).
T
Dr. Kazufumi Taira
Institution: University of the Ryukyus
Languages: English, Japanese
Ongoing Research/Projects related to Okinawa:
Okinawan Identity Development, Japanese Identity Construction in Okinawa
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
“Being more Okinawan in Hawaiʻi: Socio-psychological processes of Okinawan identity development among Okinawan international university and college students in Hawaiʻi.” Asia Pacific Journal of Education. 43(2), 497–513, (2023).
“A systematic form of Japanization in Okinawa: Japanese identity construction through a Japanization discourse in textbooks and a textbook guide.” International Studies in Sociology of Education, 28(2), pp. 110–126, (2019).
“Okinawan consciousness and identity salience and development among Okinawan university students studying in Hawai‘i.” Journal of International Students, 8(1), pp. 431–452, (2018).
Dr. Shinnosuke Takahashi
Institution: Victoria University of Wellington
Email for Shinnosuke Takahashi
Website for Shinnosuke Takahashi
Languages: English, Japanese, Korean
Ongoing Research/Project related to Okinawa:
History of Post-WWII anti-US military movement
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
Transpacific Visions: Connected Histories of the Pacific across North and South; Memories of struggles: Translocal lives in okinawan anti-base activism; Beyond Minority History: Okinawa Korea People’s Solidarity and Internationalization of the Okinawa Struggle; 媒介(カタリスト)としての「沖縄戦後史」 : 新崎盛暉著『私の沖縄現代史』を中心に
Dr. Marco Tinello
Institution: Kanagawa University
Languages: English, Japanese
Ongoing Research/Project related to Okinawa:
The annexation of Ryukyu to Japan from a longer and broader perspective
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
”Senhappyakurokuju nendai ni okeru Tokugawa bakufu ni yoru Ryukyu no ichiduke: bakufu ga Igirisu seifu ni teishutsu shita 'hensho' to hokokusho wo chushin ni" [The Tokugawa bakufu's definition of the Ryukyus' status in the 1860s centered on the reply and reports handed to the British government], Toyo-shi kenkyu 78, no.3 (2019): 72-103. 一八六〇年代における徳川幕府による琉球の位置付けー幕府がイギリス政府に提出した「返書」と報告書を中心にー, 東洋史研究.
V
Prof. Gabriele Vogt
Institution: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU Munich)
Twitter handle: @gabriele_vogt
Languages: English, Japanese, German
Ongoing Research/Projects related to Okinawa:
Local politics, social movements, civic engagement in contemporary Okinawa
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
Hijino, Ken Victor Leonard and Gabriele Vogt (2021): Identity politics in Okinawan elections: The emergence of regional populism. In: Japan Forum, 33:1, pp. 50-76, DOI: 10.1080/09555803.2019.1646784 (online since 10 Sep. 2019)
Vogt, Gabriele (2018): Political Protest from the Periphery: Social Movements and Global Citizenship in Okinawa. In: Chiavacci, David; Obinger, Julia (eds.): Social Movements and Political Activism in Contemporary Japan: Re-emerging from Invisibility. London: Routledge (The Mobilization Series on Social Movements, Protest, and Culture), pp. 71–92.
Vogt, Gabriele (2015): Setting Out to Imagine a New Community: Okinawa's Reversion to Japan. In: Hein, Ina; Prochaska-Meyer, Isabelle (eds.): 40 Years Since Reversion. Negotiating the Okinawa Difference in Japan Today. Wien: Japanologie am Institut für Ostasienwissenschaften der Universität Wien. pp. 44-70.
Vogt, Gabriele (2003): Die Renaissance der Friedensbewegung in Okinawa. Innen- und außenpolitische Dimensionen 1995-2000. München: Iudicium.
W
Ms. Charmaine Willis
Institution: University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY)
Languages: English, Japanese
Ongoing Research/Projects related to Okinawa:
My dissertation project explores why some communities that host foreign or domestic military forces witness more opposition than others, focusing on communities in Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. In Japan, I focus on Okinawa (looking at both the struggles against the Henoko construction and the helipad construction in Takae) and Yokosuka.
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
"Framing the Conversation: the US Military and Anti-US-Base Activism in Japan." International Studies Association Annual Meeting, Las Vegas, NV (2021)
Japanese Politics Online Seminar Series (2021). "US Base Politics." POS 499: International Politics of East Asia, University of Maine, November 2020.
Y
Dr. Ryan Yokota
Institution: DePaul University
Twitter Handle: @RyanYokota
Languages: English, Japanese
Ongoing Research/Project related to Okinawa:
I focus on Okinawan post-WWII nationalism(s), including issues of independence, regional autonomy, and indigenousness. Previously, I looked at Okinawan diasporic studies in relation to Latin America and the U.S.
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
“Reversion-Era Proposals for Okinawan Regional Autonomy.” in Rethinking Postwar Okinawa: Beyond American Occupation, edited by Hiroko Matsuda and Pedro Iacobelli, 59-79. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2017.
“The Okinawan (Uchinānchu) Indigenous Movement and its Implications for Intentional/International Action.” in Amerasia Journal 41:1 (Spring 2015): 55-73.
“Ganbateando: The Peruvian Nisei Association and Okinawan Peruvians in Los Angeles.” in Transnational Crossroads: Remapping the Americas and the Pacific, edited by Camilla Fojas and Rudy P. Guevarra Jr., 427-460. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2012.
“‘Transculturation’ and Adaptation: A Brief History of Japanese and Okinawan Cubans.” in Afro-Hispanic Review 27:1 (Spring 2008): 91-104.
Dr. Victoria Young
Institution: University of Cambridge
Twitter Handle: @vickyyoung202
Languages: English, Japanese
Ongoing Research/Project related to Okinawa:
Modern and contemporary Okinawan literature, especially Sakiyama Tami and Toma Hiroko; decolonisation theory and practices; translation; Okinawan texts in national and world literary paradigms.
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
"Inciting the past: Okinawan literature and the decolonising turn," in Japan Forum, 32/4 (Dec 2020): 577-600; 東アジア連続講演会第6回『沖縄と文学』 (TUFS, 27 Nov 2020).
Z
Prof. Kirsten Ziomek
Institution: Adelphi University
Languages: English, Japanese
Ongoing Research/Project related to Okinawa:
In my first book, Lost Histories, I discuss four groups of colonial peoples in the Japanese empire: the Ainu, Micronesians, Okinawans, and Indigenous Taiwanese. I tell the life histories of several individuals through an array of sources including: visual imagery, material objects, oral histories and interviews, and colonial documents within and without the colonial archives. For those particularly interested in the Okinawan colonial experience, Chapter 1 discusses the 1903 Human Pavilion (人類館) and the two Okinawan women displayed there, Nakamura Kame and Ushihara Ume. Chapter 6 “Two Coconuts and a Bonito Stick” is centered on Micronesia but I foreground the experiences of Okinawan immigrants within a larger discussion of the lived experiences of specific Palauan and Saipanese individuals. Chapter 8 “A Mountain of Bones” is about two Ainu soldiers’ experiences of war, including Teshi Toyoji, who fought in the Battle of Okinawa and forged friendships with the Okinawan people during the war. He was part of the effort in the postwar period to build the Nanboku no tō（南北の塔）memorial which commemorates the soldiers from Hokkaido, including thirty-nine Ainu soldiers, and local residents of Maehira who died during the Battle of Okinawa. I am currently writing a second book titled: The disorder of killing in the Pacific War: the colonial soldiers, forced laborers and local peoples at the Japanese empire’s edge. In it, I aim to transform the way we write military history in terms of who the subject of the story is, how these histories are narrated and the kinds of evidence used to reconstruct these histories. I center the narrative on Japan's colonial soldiers, forced laborers, and the local populations coopted into performing labor for the military throughout various battle sites across the Pacific, including the Philippines, Saipan, Okinawa, Attu, and New Guinea, as well as the forced labor sites throughout Hokkaido.
Recent Publications/Lectures related to Okinawa:
Editor, The Japanese Empire: Colonial Lives and Postcolonial Struggles. The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus (2013).
“The 1903 Human Pavilion: Colonial Realities and Subaltern Subjectivities in Twentieth-Century Japan.” The Journal of Asian Studies 73(2): 493–516 (2014).
Lost Histories: Recovering the Lives of Japan’s Colonial Peoples. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center (2019).
