2019 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
The Limits of Decolonization: Taiwan and Japan in the Wake of Empire
| Project/Area Number |
18K01001
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| Research Institution | Kyushu University |
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Principal Investigator |
オーガスティン マシュー 九州大学, 比較社会文化研究院, 准教授 (40598710)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2018-04-01 – 2021-03-31
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| Keywords | Decolonization |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
This research project examines American and Chinese occupation policies in postwar Japan and Taiwan, focusing on outstanding issues related to the vestiges of Japanese colonialism. During the second year, I conducted archival research on Chinese family registry and nationality policies towards Taiwanese after 1945, making a research trip to Taipei in late April through early May 2019. Specifically, I immersed myself for ten days in the most relevant records deposited at Academia Historica and the Institute of Modern History at Academia Sinica. In addition, I made a research trip to Kobe in June 2019, and examined records pertaining to overseas Chinese registrations and nationality certificates, copies of which are located at the Kobe Overseas Chinese History Museum. Based on these historical documents, I gave a presentation on my research project at an international symposium held at Seoul National University. In January 2020 I made another research trip to Tokyo where I examined official documents pertaining to the legal status of Taiwanese in Japan during the postwar occupation period, copies of which are available at the National Diet Library.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
My research project is progressing smoothly towards the objectives outlined in my original proposal. However, I was unable to conduct further research in Tokyo, due to the spread of the coronavirus in February and March 2020.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
In the coming year, I hope to finish my archival research in Japan and in the United States. My sources in Tokyo include various ministerial records of the Japanese government deposited in the National Archives of Japan and the Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. If possible, I also plan on conducting research in the greater Washington, D.C. area, based on US policy documents on Taiwan and Japan after World War II, much of which can be found at the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and the MacArthur Memorial's Library and Archives in Norfolk, Virginia. I am scheduled to present my research to date at the annual conference of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) in Asia. By the end of 2021, I plan to disseminate my final research findings by publishing a monograph.
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| Causes of Carryover |
I had originally planned to make several research trips to Tokyo in FY 2019, but was unable to travel during the months of February and March 2020, due to the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Therefore, I plan to allocate the leftover funding from FY 2019 to FY 2020 in order to conduct archival research in Tokyo as soon as health conditions become safe enough to travel again.
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