The meaning of colonial law and a congruent empire in the making of the inter-state order: From a case of the Japanese empire

VENUE: HYBRID

IN-PERSON: Institutes Boardroom (Room 1.12 & 1.12B), Coombs Extension Building 8, ANU

ONLINE: Zoom. Please select the relevant ticket, in-person or online, according to your preferred attendance mode.

There have been two fundamental dilemmas in the development of the so-called modern inter-state order. First, how have various forms of imperial polities been ‘fitting in’ this order that was based on sovereign units, or why have they become invisible? Second, how do we understand the historical fact that the states which advanced constitutional and parliamentary democracy at the metropolitan imperial centres and promoted the ‘liberal’ inter-state order, also simultaneously colonized the lands and the peoples beyond (and within) their ‘national’ borders?

These are two major themes in ANU School of Culture, History, and Language (CHL) Associate Professor Tomoko Akami's current ARC project, and she has been exploring them through the thinking and actions of the experts of the Japanese empire and their idea circuits across the regions since the mid-late 19th century to the mid-1950s. In this work-in-progress paper, she suggests their debates on the constitutionality of Japan’s colonial rule and their making of colonial law, which eventually came to model after a congruent empire of central Europe, may have a clue for a shift from the imperial nations-state to the post-war nation-state and for the making of the inter-state order.

Tomoko also suggests while this shift made imperial polities invisible both in a scholars' analytical framework and a popular perception of the post-1945 inter-state order, it holds a key to untangle and address diverse problematics of post-colonial people’s status and movements in the modern inter-state order.

This event is a collaboration between CHL's Pacific and Asian History Department and the ANU Japan Institute (a special Japan Institute seminar). 


Speaker

Associate Professor Tomoko Akami
Originally from the background of history of British imperial relations, Tomoko specialises in the field of history of international relations in Asia and the Pacific in the inter-war period. Using the case studies of people, organizations, and policies of Japan, she has been questioning certain assumptions in international history written predominantly from Anglo-American perspectives.

Light refreshments will be provided at 3.40pm

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The ANU Japan Institute Seminar Series is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia-Japan Foundation of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.