[E2] Reweaving Development Studies through Okinawa: Epistemologies of internal Postcolonial Space

12:40 PM - 2:40 PM JST(3:40 AM - 5:40 AM UTC)Japanese

[1E02] Reweaving Development Studies through Okinawa: Epistemologies of internal Postcolonial Space

*Muyun WANG¹, *Kei Kohagura ², *Sana Sakihama¹, *Naoki Matsubara¹ (1. The University of Tokyo, 2. Tokyo Institute of Science)

Keywords:

Okinawa,international development studies in Japan,decolonization,peace,development

This Roundtable (RT), convened at the 36th Annual Conference of the Japan Society for International Development (JASID) in Hiroshima under the theme “Opening Prospects for Peace and Development – A Dialogue Towards the Future,” reexamines the intersections between Okinawa studies and international development research. More than eighty years after the end of World War II, mainland Japan has enjoyed economic growth under its peace constitution, while Okinawa has been compelled to coexist with U.S. military bases—an enduring condition that has deeply shaped its economy and the everyday lives of its residents. This inseparable dynamic is central to understanding the entangled relationship between “development” and “peace” in postwar Japan. Yet, Japan’s field of International Development Studies (IDS) has rarely situated Okinawa’s experience within its broader analytical frameworks.

Marking eighty years since Japan’s defeat in the war and forty years since the establishment of the JICA Okinawa Center, this RT seeks to connect Okinawa—as both a theoretical and experiential site—with IDS, particularly through postcolonial and pluriversal perspectives. Moving between theory and lived reality, we aim to cultivate fundamentally new approaches to Okinawa’s “too big to solve, too big to look at” development challenges—going beyond the habitual responses of neglect, silent resignation, or fleeting expressions of pain and anger.