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- Convenors:
-
Ra Mason
(University of East Anglia)
Sherzod Muminov (University of East Anglia)
Tomoko Akami (Australian National University)
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- Chair:
-
Michael Randall Marcel Roellinghoff
(University of Hong Kong)
- Discussant:
-
Joshua Fogel
(York University)
- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- Politics and International Relations
- Location:
- 4.13
- Sessions:
- Friday 28 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Warsaw
Short Abstract
This panel examines how the institutions and knowledge systems of the Japanese Empire were repurposed after 1945, showing the continuity of colonial logics in Japan’s post-war economics, its role in global institutions, and the reconfiguration of its former colonies into Cold War frontiers.
Long Abstract
This panel brings together scholars of the Japanese Empire who investigate colonial technopolitics, imperial pedagogy, and their legacies in post-war Japan. Jamyung Choi traces Takushoku University’s origins as an institution training colonial administrators and discusses the power struggles between settlers, metropolitan elites, and colonized subjects that led to its transformation into a hub for anti-Western Pan-Asianism. Ra Mason’s paper unpacks the complex legacies of US settler militarism in post-war Okinawa in shaping its politics, economy, and identity narratives, while highlighting Okinawan agency within this enduring imperial framework. Sherzod Muminov argues that, while the Soviet Union’s invasion of the Japanese Karafuto (Russian: Sakhalin) in 1945 abruptly ended this settler colonial project, Soviet authorities expediently maintained or repurposed several of the colony’s key structures, most notably retaining the forcibly mobilized Korean labour force. Finally, building on Choi’s critique, Tomoko Akami demonstrates how pre-war Colonial Studies programs formed the basis of post-war Japan’s developmentalist economics, revealing how the logics of colonial governance were embedded into global institutions like the UN. By centring governance, expertise, and colonial legacies, the panel offers critical new insights into how institutional mechanisms sustained imperial power during Japan’s formal “colonial period.” It further demonstrates how these same knowledge systems, economic structures, and labour regimes continued to shape Japan’s international role post-1945 and reconfigure former colonial spaces into Cold War frontiers.
| Abstract in Japanese (if needed) |
Accepted papers
Session 1 Friday 28 August, 2026, -Paper short abstract
Through interrogation of how Okinawan local politics' deep entanglement with US settler militarism has led to diverse economic adaptations across commercial and government sectors, the paper identifies how narratives of deterrence and alliance have become key aspects of Okinawa’s multiplex identity.
Paper long abstract
In attempting to explicate the complexities of Okinawa, the specific and complex extent to which the US military’s post-World War II occupation of the Island and its off islands has utterly reshaped their politics, economics and society is often misunderstood or misrepresented. Yet, the legacy of US “settler militarism” remains starkly evident on Okinawa to this day. In response, this paper addresses deep and seemingly contradictory discrepancies in the impact upon different aspects and sectors of contemporary Okinawa. To that end, it adopts a historically informed, decentered approach that examines the role of Okinawan agency in asking the following key research questions: to what extent has Okinawa’s postwar experience shaped Okinawan political forces and voices? How have key commercial and government actors optimized, utilized or otherwise circumvented the so-called “base economy”? To what extent has settler militarism shaped narratives of geopolitical security and social development on the islands? The paper therein (re)examines conventional academic literature, policy documents, Diet minutes and a range of other historical materials in order to identify how: i) local Okinawan politics remain deeply influenced by, entangled with, and framed in relation to base politics; ii) US settler militarism has led to diverse economic adaptations and innovations across commercial and local government sectors; iii) neither geopolitical security or a free and prosperous society are reliant upon the US military presence in its own right, but narratives of deterrence and alliance have become central aspects of Okinawa’s multifaceted identity.
Paper short abstract
This paper is on the transition of Japan's colony of Karafuto into a Soviet territory following the empire's defeat in WWII. By focusing on the experiences of settlers and colonial labourers, the paper investigates the features and consequences of this failed experiment in Japanese colonialism.
Paper long abstract
For four decades, the southern half of the Sakhalin Island (Karafuto) staged the second of Japan’s experiments in settler colonialism. Acquired formally in 1905 following victory over Imperial Russia, ten years after Taiwan but almost three decades before the start of the bold experiment of Manchukuo, the resource-rich island with a harsh climate became Japan’s second formal colony. It presented the colonizers with a new set of challenges, but also a fresh slate to inscribe ambitious plans for Japan’s future as a rising colonial empire. Like with most colonial projects, these plans envisaged settling the island with Japanese natives, as well as recruiting other colonized peoples, chiefly Koreans and Ainu, for their labour in resource extraction and infrastructure development projects.
The idiosyncrasies of this ambitious attempt at colonization became apparent when the Soviet Union invaded the colony in August 1945, as part of the brief Soviet-Japanese War. The Red Army speedily occupied Karafuto, turning the colony into a liminal space for several months: while retaining the trappings of Japan’s empire, it necessarily acquired newly Soviet characteristics. The Moscow rulers imposed their own policy priorities, an impact of which could be seen, for example, in their refusal to release 24,000 Koreans once mobilized to the island by the Japanese but now needed as workforce in Sovietizing Southern Sakhalin.
In this paper, I analyze the fall of the Japanese colony of Karafuto and its subsequent incorporation into the Soviet Union, with the trials and tribulations in the transitional period in between. In doing so, I consult Soviet and Japanese eyewitness accounts, as well as archival sources in Japanese, Russian, and English, resorting where possible to comparisons with the imperial collapse in another Japanese colony, Manchukuo. My primary goal is to outline the unique features and unintended consequences of Japan’s failed experiment in settler colonialism, which came to prominence during a period when the Soviets reluctantly utilized Japanese institutions (e.g. banks and currency), while attempting to establish their presence. This period of joint rule sheds important light on post-imperial, postcolonial transitions and settlements, and the fates of thousands trapped between empires.