Narratives of the Sea in Okinawa: Oblivion or Marginalising the Pacific

This paper investigates the historical processes through which Okinawa has articulated its self-representation in relation to the Pacific, elucidating its dual positionality as both a subordinated periphery and a participant in the Japanese nation-state’s economic and military expansion. Following Japan’s defeat in World War II, Okinawa was occupied and administered by the United States for 27 years, functioning as the ‘keystone of the Pacific’ and a de facto American military colony during the Cold War. Despite this designation, Okinawa’s connection with the Pacific Islands remained tenuous, as both regions were situated within overlapping spheres of U.S. and Japanese hegemony. Within this configuration of power, Okinawa seldom recognised the Pacific Islands as co-victims of colonialism; rather, it tended to reproduce imperial hierarchies by constructing narratives that othered the Pacific as marginal and inferior. In delineating a geographical and civilizational boundary, Okinawa internalised and perpetuated structures of imperial domination. This study examines specific instances of such dynamics, including Okinawan discourses endorsing Japan’s Southward Expansion Theory in the 1940s, the 1976 Okinawa Ocean Expo, and the 2000 ‘Okinawa Initiative,’ thereby revealing the ambivalent entanglement of Okinawa’s postcolonial identity within broader Pacific geopolitics.