No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Fishing for a New World Order in the Twentieth-Century Indo-Pacific
Transimperial Circulations, Oceanic Sovereignty, and Decolonization
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2024
Abstract
This article argues that the territorialization of the ocean was one of the crucial inflection points of the twentieth century, transforming the sovereignty of states and profoundly reshaping their territories. In terms of scale, it is the most planetary of the many remappings that have marked the twentieth century. A close study of the globalization of the Japanese tuna industry serves to illustrate this transition and can help us understand why and how this process evolved. The Japanese Empire was a key actor in the transimperial hotspot of the Indo-Pacific, where multiple empires met and interacted. Transimperial “brokers”—both human migrants and migratory species such as tuna—moved across boundaries and created an open oceanic frontier dependent on shifting ecological conditions. These transimperial entanglements did not end in 1945. Their legacies weighed heavy in the decolonization process that followed the Second World War, with new states seeking to establish their territories at sea as well as on land. Japan’s success in maintaining access to fishing grounds shows how these entanglements transcended the so-called Age of Empires to influence the establishment of a new global order and a new oceanic sovereignty.
Résumé
Cet article soutient que la territorialisation de l’océan a été l’une des inflexions cruciales du xxe siècle, transformant la souveraineté des États et remodelant profondément leurs territoires. En termes d’échelle, il s’agit de la plus planétaire des nombreuses reconfigurations qui ont marqué le xxe siècle. Une étude approfondie de la mondialisation de l’industrie thonière japonaise permet d’illustrer cette transition et peut nous aider à comprendre pourquoi et comment ce processus a évolué. L’empire japonais était un acteur clef dans la « zone sensible » trans-impériale du bassin Indo-Pacifique, où de multiples empires se rencontraient et interagissaient. Les « intermédiaires » trans-impériaux – tant les migrants humains que les espèces migratrices telles que le thon – agissaient par-delà les frontières et créaient un horizon océanique ouvert et dépendant de conditions écologiques fluctuantes. Ces relations trans-impériales ne prirent pas fin en 1945, et leur héritage pesa lourdement dans le processus de décolonisation, les nouveaux États cherchant à établir leurs territoires en mer comme sur terre. Le succès du Japon dans le maintien de l’accès aux zones de pêche montre comment ces enchevêtrements ont transcendé l’ère dite des empires pour influencer l’établissement d’un nouvel ordre mondial et d’une nouvelle souveraineté océanique.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- © Éditions de l’EHESS
Footnotes
*
* This article was first published in French as “Régimes de pêche et nouvel ordre mondial dans le bassin Indo-Pacifique au xxe siècle. Souveraineté, migration et décolonisation,” Annales HSS 78, no. 2 (2023): 271–96.
References
1 Elisabeth Mann Borgese, “The Process of Creating an International Ocean Regime to Protect the Ocean’s Resources,” in Freedom for the Seas in the 21st Century: Ocean Governance and Environmental Harmony, ed. Jon M. Van Dyke, Durwood Zaelke, and Grant Hewison (Washington: Island Press, 1993), 23–37, here p. 37.
2 Reinhart Koselleck, “Raum und Geschichte,” in Zeitschichten. Studien zur Historik, ed. Reinhart Koselleck (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2003), 78–96, here p. 95.
3 Garrett James Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science, n.s. 162, no. 3859 (1968): 1243–48.
4 Donella H. Meadows et al., The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind (New York: Universe Books, 1972).
5 Arvid Pardo, “Third World Lecture 1984: Ocean Space and Mankind,” Third World Quarterly 6, no. 3 (1984): 559–72, here p. 567.
6 Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
7 Eric J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991 (London: Michael Joseph, 1994).
8 John Robert McNeill and Peter Engelke, The Great Acceleration: An Environmental History of the Anthropocene since 1945 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016).
9 Joachim Radkau, The Age of Ecology: A Global History [2011] (Cambridge: Polity, 2014).
10 Charles S. Maier, “Consigning the Twentieth Century to History: Alternative Narratives for the Modern Era,” American Historical Review 105, no. 3 (2000): 807–31, here p. 816. Maier slightly modified his thesis in his later book Once within Borders: Territories of Power, Wealth, and Belonging since 1500 (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2016). On the argument for deepening the analytical value of territoriality by taking verticality into account, see Manu Goswami et al., “AHR Conversation. History after the End of History: Reconceptualizing the Twentieth Century,” American Historical Review 121, no. 5 (2016): 1567–1607.
11 Donald R. Rothwell and Tim Stephens, The International Law of the Sea (Oxford: Hart, 2010), 82.
12 Insightful studies include Gregg Mitman, Michelle Murphy, and Christopher Sellers, “A Cloud over History,” introduction to “Landscapes of Exposure: Knowledge and Illness in Modern Environments,” ed. Gregg Mitman, Michelle Murphy, and Christopher Sellers, special issue, Osiris 19, no. 1 (2004): 1–20; Jerry C. Zee, “Holding Patterns: Sand and Political Time at China’s Desert Shores,” Cultural Anthropology 32, no. 2 (2017): 215–41; Robert Macfarlane, Underland: A Deep Time Journey (New York: W. W. Norton, 2019).
13 Elizabeth DeLoughrey, “Submarine Futures of the Anthropocene,” Comparative Literature 69, no. 1 (2017): 32–44.
14 For early thoughts in this direction, see Philip E. Steinberg, The Social Construction of the Ocean (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Naomi Oreskes, “Scaling Up Our Vision,” Isis 105, no. 2 (2014): 379–91; Kären Wigen, “In This Issue,” American Historical Review 111, no. 3 (2006): 717–21.
15 Markus P. M. Vink, “Indian Ocean Studies and the ‘New Thalassology’,” Journal of Global History 2, no. 1 (2007): 41–62. Studies include Ryan Tucker Jones, “Running into Whales: The History of the North Pacific from below the Waves,” American Historical Review 118, no. 2 (2013): 349–77; W. Jeffrey Bolster, “Putting the Ocean in Atlantic History: Maritime Communities and Marine Ecology in the Northwest Atlantic, 1500–1800,” American Historical Review 113, no. 1 (2008): 19–47; Bathsheba Demuth, Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait (New York: W. W. Norton, 2019).
16 Sujit Sivasundaram, Alison Bashford, and David Armitage, “Writing World Oceanic Histories,” introduction to Oceanic Histories, ed. David Armitage, Alison Bashford, and Sujit Sivasundaram (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 1–28, here p. 26.
17 Daniel Hedinger and Nadin Heé, “Transimperial History: Connectivity, Cooperation and Competition,” Journal of Modern European History 16, no. 4 (2018): 429–51.
18 Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, archives of Michitaka Uda, private notebook; John F. Kennedy, “Letter to the president of the Senate on increasing the national effort in oceanography,” March 29, 1961, American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/letter-the-president-the-senate-increasing-the-national-effort-oceanography.
19 Albert W. C. T. Herre, “Japanese Fisheries and Fish Supplies,” Far Eastern Survey 12, no. 10 (1943): 99–101.
20 Nadin Heé, “Negotiating Migratory Tuna: Territorialization of the Oceans, Trans-War Knowledge and Fisheries Diplomacy,” Diplomatic History 44, no. 3 (2020): 413–27.
21 William M. Tsutsui, “The Pelagic Empire: Reconsidering Japanese Expansion,” in Japan at Nature’s Edge: The Environmental Context of a Global Power, ed. Ian Jared Miller, Julia Adeney Thomas, and Brett L. Walker (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2013), 21–38.
22 Daisuke Miyauchi and Yasushi Fujibayashi, Katsuobushi to Nihonjin (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 2013).
23 “Katsuo. Il pesce della vittoria,” Yamato: Mensile italo-giapponese (December 1941), 379.
24 Sasha Issenberg, The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy (New York: Gotham Books, 2007).
25 For a more detailed discussion of marine resources as more than simply a means to feed the Japanese population, and of the competition over canned tuna between the United States and Japan, see Nadin Heé, “Tuna as an Economic Resource and Symbolic Capital in Japan’s ‘Imperialism of the Sea’,” in Animals and Human Society in Asia: Historical, Cultural, and Ethical Perspectives, ed. Rotem Kowner et al. (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 213–38.
26 Shimizu Hiroshi and Hitoshi Hirakawa, Japan and Singapore in the World Economy: Japan’s Economic Advance into Singapore, 1870–1965 (London: Routledge, 1999), in particular chapter 4.
27 Marcel Mauss, “Les techniques du corps” [1936], in Sociologie et Anthropologie (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1950), 371–72.
28 Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), “Summation of Non-Military Activities in Japan and Korea,” report no. 5, February 1946, p. 17.
29 Thomas Henry Huxley, Inaugural Meeting of the Fishery Congress: Address by Professor Huxley (London: W. Clowes and Sons, 1883).
30 G. Brown Goode, “The International Fisheries Exhibition,” Science 1, no. 16 (1883): 447–50; Goode, “The International Fisheries Exhibition – Second Paper,” Science 1, no. 20 (1883): 564–65; Goode, “The International Fisheries Exhibition – Third Paper,” Science 2, no. 26 (1883): 129–31; Goode, “The International Fisheries Exhibition – Fourth Paper,” Science 2, no. 40 (1883): 612–15; note on “Papers of the Conferences Held in Connection with the Great International Fisheries Exhibition,” Journal of the Society of Arts 32, no. 1623 (1883): 112; correspondence regarding “The International Fishery Exhibition,” Scientific American 40, no. 6 (1883): 88.
31 Deutscher Seefischerei-Verein, Abhandlungen des Deutschen Seefischerei-Vereins (Berlin: Otto Salle, 1898); Kamakichi Kishinoue, The Fishing Industry in Japan (Bergen: J. Grieg, 1898).
32 T. W. V., obituary for “Kamakichi Kishinouye,” Science 71, no. 1833 (1930): 179.
33 Robin Allen, James A. Joseph, and Dale Squires, Conservation and Management of Transnational Tuna Fisheries (Hoboken: Wiley, 2010).
34 See, for example, Kamakichi Kishinoue, “Maguro Katsuo No Kenkyū,” Suisankai 466 (1921): 22–25. See also sketches of the migratory routes of tuna and other species on loose, unnumbered pages in private notebooks, Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, archives of Michitaka Uda.
35 Michitaka Uda, “Kuroshio No Ryūikika Ni Okeru Kaisuisō No Sōjū Jōtai Ni Tsuite,” Umi to sora 9, no. 11 (1929): 175–82.
36 For overviews of the structure of Japan’s imperial fisheries, see in particular Yasuhiro Itō et al., eds., Teikoku Nihon No Gyogyō to Gyogyō Seisaku (Tokyo: Hokuto Shobō, 2016), chapter 1. For an account of the main research bodies, see SCAP, Department of Natural Resources, ed., Japanese Fisheries before 1945 (Tokyo: SCAP, 1950).
37 For instance, Nanyō suisan kyōkai, ed., Afurika No Suisan (Tokyo: Nanyō suisan kyōkai, 1936).
38 For example, Kaiyō gyogyō kyōkai, ed., Sekai suisan tōkei 1933–1937 (Tokyo: Kaiyō gyogyō kyōkai 1937).
39 For example, Nanyō suisan kyōkai, Kaiyō gyogyō shinkō kyōkai, Suiseikai, ed., Kaigai Gyogyō Jijō (Tokyo: Nanyō suisan kyōkai, 1937).
40 Itaro Takayama, Nanyō No Suisan (Tokyo: Dainihon Suisankai, 1914), 324.
41 Nanyō suisan kyōkai, Kaiyō gyogyō shinkō kyōkai, Suiseikai, Kaigai Gyogyō Jijō.
42 For research by a Philippine expert, see Claro Martin, “Tuna Fisheries and Long-Line Fishing in Davao Gulf, Philippines,” Philippine Journal of Science 67, no. 2 (1938): 189–98.
43 John G. Butcher, The Closing of the Frontier: A History of the Marine Fisheries of Southeast Asia, c. 1850–2000 (Singapore: ISEAS Publications, 2004), 124 and 138–67.
44 Paris, UNESCO archives, D IV 46, program of the Third Pan-Pacific Science Congress, Tokyo, October 30–November 11, 1926.
45 N. B. Scofield, ed., “Commercial Fishery Notes,” California Fish and Game 6, no. 4 (1920): 172–76, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/53575#page/34/mode/1up.
46 Hiroshi and Hirakawa, Japan and Singapore in the World Economy.
47 Butcher, The Closing of the Frontier, 150.
48 US Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, ed., “Japan’s Big Fishing Companies,” Fishery Leaflet 268 (1947), 3.
49 Nanyō suisan kyōkai, Kaiyō gyogyō shinkō kyōkai, Suiseikai, Kaigai Gyogyō Jijō, 205–209. For a history of the Harrison Line, see Graeme Cubbin, Harrisons of Liverpool: A Chronicle of Ships and Men 1830–2002 (Gravesend: Ships in Focus, 2003).
50 Naoya Kakizoe, A History of Hundred Years of Nippon Suisan Kaisha, Ltd., preface to the English edition by Norio Hosomi (Tokyo, Nissui Group, 2012), 66–70.
51 Hiroshi and Hirakawa, Japan and Singapore in the World Economy, 18.
52 Tokyo, Mitsubishi archives, microfilm MZ-597, Fisheries Department of Mitsubishi Company, Nanyō ni okeru suisangyō, 1941.
53 Ann Laura Stoler, “Tense and Tender Ties: The Politics of Comparison in North American History and (Post) Colonial Studies,” Journal of American History 88, no. 3 (2001): 829–65.
54 “De Japansche visscherij,” Leidsch Dagblad, April 24, 1909, p. 20.
55 Joseph Dautremer, L’Empire japonais et sa vie économique (Paris: E. Guilmoto, 1910), 139.
56 Ninagawa Torazō, “Nihongyogyō no mondai,” in “Gyogyō Imin Tokushū,” special issue, Umi Wo Koete (August 1939): 2–3, here p. 2.
57 Pierre Chevey, Rapport sur le fonctionnement de l’Institut océanographique de l’Indochine pendant l’année 1937–1938 (Saigon: Gouvernement général de l’Indochine, 1939), 14.
58 Paris, UNESCO archives, D IV 46, program of the Third Pan-Pacific Science Congress, Tokyo, October 30–November 11, 1926.
59 “Economische Penetratie van Japanners in Indie?” Leidsche Courant, May 12, 1930, p. 10.
60 Kew, The National Archives, ADM 1/11142, “Activities of Japanese nationals in British waters in Indian Ocean: Fishery protection and supervision of activities,” 1939–1941. See also Hiroshi and Hirakawa, Japan and Singapore in the World Economy, in particular p. 118.
61 “Ontslag aan Japansche visschers op Malakka?” Leidsch Dagblad, July 13, 1939, p. 2.
62 Sangyo Tokei, Kenkyujo, ed., Nanpo Shigenron (Tokyo: Toado, 1940), 25.
63 Kumatarō Atsumi, Watashi no hansei (Kyonan: by the author, 1995), private archives of Fukuhara Norio.
64 Torazō, “Nihongyogyō no mondai,” 2.
65 See the special issue “Gyogyō Imin Tokushū,” Umi Wo Koete (August 1939), 18.
66 Ibid., 12f.
67 Hiroshi and Hirakawa, Japan and Singapore in the World Economy.
68 Tōichi Kuwata, Suisan Nihon (Tokyo: Dai-Nihon Yubenkai Kōdansha, 1942).
69 Nobu Asato, Okinawa Ken Jin Nanpō Hatten Shi, Nan’yō Shiryō, vol. 106 (Tokyo: Nanyō keizai kenkyūjo shuppanbu, 1942), 19.
70 Atsumi, Watashi no hansei.
71 “Danseiteki Katsuotsuri Jikkenki,” Maui Newspaper, May 13, 1927.
72 Uhei Matsumoto, Sangyō Rikkoku Shugi to Gendai Shakai (Tokyo: Ōsakaya goshoten, 1927), 162f.
73 Atsumi, Watashi no hansei.
74 Carmel Finley, All the Fish in the Sea: Maximum Sustainable Yield and the Failure of Fisheries Management (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011). See “Proclamation 2668: Policy of the United States with respect to coastal fisheries in certain areas of the high seas,” September 28, 1945, https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/proclamations/02668.html.
75 Sayuri Guthrie-Shimizu, “Occupation Policy and the Japanese Fisheries Management Regime, 1945–1952,” in Democracy in Occupied Japan: The U.S. Occupation and Japanese Politics and Society, ed. Mark Caprio and Yoneyuki Sugita (London: Routledge, 2007), 48–66.
76 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1982, article 2, p. 27.
77 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1982, article 64, p. 48.
78 Carmel Finley, All the Boats on the Ocean: How Government Subsidies Led to Global Overfishing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 3.
79 Demuth, Floating Coast.
80 Robert Gillett, A Short History of Industrial Fishing in the Pacific Islands (Rome: FAO, 2007).
81 Michitaka Uda and Yasuaki Nakamura, Hydrography in Relation to Tuna Fisheries in the Indian Ocean: A Special Publication Dedicated to Dr. N. K. Panikkar (Tokyo: Marine Biological Association of India, 1973).
82 Hiroshi Nakamura, Tuna Longline Fishery and Fishing Grounds [1951], trans. W. G. Van Campen, Special Scientific Report: Fisheries, no. 112 (Washington: US Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, 1954), 15.
83 Kaigai gyogyō kyōryoku zaidan, Kaigai gyogyō kyōryoku zaidan nijunen no ayumi (Tokyo: Kaigai gyogyō kyōryoku zaidan, 1993).
84 Tokyo, company archives of the Japanese OFCF, unnumbered reports in Japanese and English, 1982.
85 Papetee, ORSTOM Tahiti, oceanography archives, 83-12, Jacques Chabanne, Pierre Couput, and Louis Marec, “La pêche palangrière japonaise dans la ZZE de Polynésie française en 1982.”
86 Tokyo, company archives of the Japanese OFCF, several unnumbered reports in Japanese and English on tuna fisheries aid within the Portuguese EEZ by Japanese longline fishing vessels, 1982–1985.
87 Georg Borgstrom, Japan’s World Success in Fishing (London: Fishing News, 1964), 273.
88 Koide Isao, Nikkatsurenshi, ed. Nihon Katsuo Maguro Gyogyōsha Kyōkai, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Nihon Katsuo Maguro Gyogyō Kyōdō Kumiai Rengōkai, 1966–1967), 2:81f.