Recent Trends of Historiography on Modern Okinawa

Paper delivered at the International Symposium on State, Current Developments and Future Tasks in Japanese Studies, Bonn 2006. Abstract: When we look at the last century and a half’s history of Okinawa it seems quite evident that the path it followed is marked by continual changes and fractures: the dismantling of the Kingdom of Ryūkyū and the establishment of Okinawa Prefecture in 1879; the reform of political, economic and social institutions carried out by the new administration; the economic crisis which affected this region in the 1920s; the war experience which ended with a battle decimating the local population; the 27 years of American military rule during which large areas of the islands were transformed into military bases; the reunification to Japan in 1972 and the post-Cold War realignment. Such changes deeply affected the political, economic, social and cultural life of this region, also implying a continual redefinition of Okinawa’s position inside altered contexts. The complexity characterising the history of Okinawa in about the last century and a half is reflected in the contents, the methods and, often, also in the tones adopted by the historical inquiry on Okinawa which has been produced during all this space of time. Hence, it is in the light of both these drastic changes and the challenges they caused to Okinawa and Okinawans’ subjectivity that it is possible to consider the development of historiography on modern Okinawa as much as its trends in recent times.