This project expands a DLC-supported research trip from two years ago, when I travelled to Hokkaido, Japan to interview the surviving Indigenous Ainu elders who travelled to China in the 1970s. This trip is part of my larger project called “Transpacific Indigenous Articulations” where I explore Indigenous-led efforts of transnational diplomacy, especially during the Cold War from 1968 to 1988. This project contributes to scholarship on the rise of global Indigenous rights and identity in two ways. First, most studies are focused on the Americas and Europe, as a Transatlantic engagement. Second, in turn, most of these studies look at the rise of an Indigenous presence in international institutions such as the United Nations. My project, on the other hand, reveals what was happening in the Transpacific. It takes a more grassroots approach, looking at a number of Indigenous-led trips, workshops and gatherings. I suggest that these were critical experiences in creating forms of global solidarity and exchange that turned “Indigenous peoples” from an idea into a political force and identity.
In the previous research trip, I completed 14 in-depth interviews and began to build connections with Ainu scholars. This research was the basis for a keynote talk at the University of Toronto (with my research collaborator, Scott Harrison) and a series of talks at the Association of Asian Studies, a podcast interview, and talks at a joint workshop between Hokkaido University and SFU. Harrison and I are writing two articles together for top-tier journals in Global History and Indigenous Studies. For a related project, we received a grant to conduct interviews with a number of First Nations delegates who also visited China in the 1970s, working with Professor Glen Coulthard (Dene, UBC) that adds a Canadian dimension to this project.
In this proposed research trip (during my sabbatical next year), I have two main goals. First, I will return to Hokkaido to conduct interviews with elders who were not available earlier, and organize an intensive workshop with Ainu scholars. We are laying the groundwork for a future large-scale project, which will include long-term exchanges of graduate students and faculty between Hokkaido University and SFU. I will also reconnect with historians of the 1970s, to better understand the broader social context in Japan, exploring topics such as the Ainu relationship to other racialized groups (like the Burakumin) and the Japanese Communist Party.
Second, it became increasingly clear in my studies that the Maori of New Zealand/Aotearoa (NZ/A) are important players in this Transpacific history. I will visit NZ/A to conduct several interviews and meet influential historians of this topic that I have already contacted (Miranda Johnson at the University of Otago, Linda Johnson at the University of Massey). I will also meet with Maori leaders such as the lawyer Moana Jackson and Professor Jacinta Ruru (University of Otago), and arrange interviews with several surviving members from the Maori delegation to China in 1973, including Timi Te Maipi and Tame Iti, who both remain active in Maori politics. In Otago, I will gather archival data on the history of the Polynesian Panther Party, which played a significant role in the trip to China and other Transpacific journeys, including welcoming First Nations delegations from Canada.
This work is important in two main ways. First, it contributes to growing scholarship on international Indigenous diplomacy. This project regards Indigenous peoples as active agents, explorers and diplomats, rather than the vast majority of accounts where they are framed as more passive victims of colonialism. These new narratives are important to help shift academic conversations as well as public conversations, to highlight Indigenous initiative and agency. Second, this is important to help shift the academic focus away from the Transatlantic that has tended to focus on Europe and institutional sites, such as the United Nations. My project, in contrast, explores the Transpacific and a diverse number of grassroots efforts. Groups across the ocean learned about each others’ situations and worked together to challenge the specific legacies of colonialism that each faced in Japan, Canada and New Zealand. Presently, there are almost no accounts of these travels in the scholarly literature, and I aim to make these histories widely available in publications and a public-facing website that documents these trips and their ongoing legacies.
This project will create more visibility for SFU and the David Lam Center in several ways. First, my connections with scholars in Japan and New Zealand will strengthen existing connections and build new ones. Second, this work will lay the groundwork for more substantial exchanges in the future. DLC logo will appear on the website and support will be acknowledged in all of the resulting publications.