Maritime Connections and Japanese World-Making in the 1950s-1960s

FAIN: FEL-289515-23

David R. Ambaras
North Carolina State University (Raleigh, NC 27695-0001)

Research and writing leading to a digitally published book on the history of ports, shipping, dockworkers, and seafarers in post-World War II Japan and the Asia-Pacific region. 

In this book-length project, I explore the intertwined histories of ports, shipping, dockworkers, and seafarers, from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, a critical transitional moment in the history of postwar Japan, global capitalism, maritime transport, and the geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific. In each section, I analyze how principal actors imagined the evolving geography of the Asia-Pacific region; how they worked to build the global connections that empowered them in the pursuit of their own agendas; and how each of these pursuits entailed the production of particular infrastructural assemblages, some more lasting than others. The subjects of my study include port administrators, shipping company executives, logistics experts, government officials, international organization personnel, labor union officials, and ordinary port laborers and seamen. I focus primarily on Japan, but weave in discussions of multiple locations where these spatial politics took shape.

Media Coverage

Meet the Faculty: An Interview with 2023-24 NEH Fellowship Winner, Professor David Ambaras (Media Coverage)
Publication: NC State University Department of History
Date: 11/14/2023
Abstract: Dr. David Ambaras, Professor of History, whose research explores the social history of Japan and its world, particularly through a focus on mobility, marginality, and transgression, recently received an NEH fellowship for 2023-24 to pursue a digital book, “Maritime Connections and Japanese World-Making in the 1950s-60s.”
URL: https://history.chass.ncsu.edu/2023/11/14/meet-the-faculty-an-interview-with-2023-24-neh-fellowship-winner-professor-david-ambaras/