The Racialization of Fishing Rights and the Exclusion of Asians in the North American Legal Cultural Sphere before World War II

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K12490
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 03010:Historical studies in general-related
• Research Institution: Asia University
• Principal Investigator: KONNO YUKO 亜細亜大学, 国際関係学部, 講師 (10707623)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: 移民史 / 法制史 / アメリカ史 / カナダ史 / トランスナショナル・ヒストリー / アジア系移民 / 北米漁業史 / 漁業権

Outline of Final Research Achievements

My research looked at the politics of Asian exclusion in the Western North America, as they particularly played out in the commercial fishing industries of California and British Columbia from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. I published two book chapters based on my research and reading of archival and legal documents. The first was part of a volume I co-edited, in which I examined the meaning attached to the "public" in the Anglo common law tradition and its interpretation in North America. The second work came out in another edited volume on modern Japanese history, in which I highlighted the connection between the discourse surrounding the smuggling of Japanese immigrants and the border-crossing of Japanese fishermen in Southern California into Mexican waters. The new perspective from the research encouraged me to look into another area of legal "borderlands" in public health, which resulted in the publication of yet another journal article.

Free Research Field

アメリカ合衆国史

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究の意義は、北米におけるアジア系移民を対象とした人種主義を法文化の観点から掘り下げた点にある。従来の移民史においては移民法の制定過程などが議論されてきたが、本研究は移民が多く携わってきた「漁業」という生業の場に焦点を当てている。環境史や社会史の文脈で捉えられがちな漁業だが、法の解釈をめぐりどのような政治が展開されてきたのかという背景を探ることで、公正概念と集団の序列化との関係性を明らかにした。法の運用や解釈における人種主義への着目は、コロナ禍におけるアジア系への差別やヘイト事件の構造を理解する上で欠かすことのできない視点を提供し、社会的な意義も大きいと言えるだろう。