New Trend on Asian Studies
The Research Group of Maritime Asian History
YAMAUCHI Shinji*

The Research Group of Maritime Asian History (the Kaiiki AjiashiKenkyūkai) was founded in 1993 when two research groups merged. Onegroup, which read classical Chinese texts related to Southeast Asia at theCenter for Southeast Asian Studies at Kyoto University, was led by thescholars, Momoki Shirō, Fukami Sumio, and Yao Takao. The other group wasthen researching the foreign relations of Japan and the Ryūkyūs at universities in the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe region. Its members were specialists in thehistories of Japan and the Ryūkyūs. The group was comprised of Fujita
Kayoko,Ōnishi Nobuyuki, Fujita Akiyoshi, Maehira Fusaaki, and myself. Our
two groups launched a research community based at Osaka University under
the leadership of Momoki Shirō on the occasion of his receiving an appointment at Osaka University.
Through merging the two groups of researchers, we aimed to link
Southeast Asian history with the history of Japan’s foreign relations. We
aimed to pursue a new historical perspective and framework by transcending
the entrenched paradigms of national histories, histories of nation states,
Euro-centric or Sino-centric histories, or the fixed frame of Chinese, Korean,and Japanese histories that has been the backbone of Japanese historicalresearch on the East Asian world. Such collaboration among scholars ofSoutheast Asian history, Japanese history, and Ryūkyūan history was an innovative approach rarely seen in the past, and greatly differentiates our researchgroup from others even today.
“Maritime Asia (Kaiiki Ajia)” is the term we coined when we founded
our research group. Our intention was to avoid the expression, “Asian seas,”
which encourages the traditional assumption that the sea is only an“appendage” to the Asian continent, the main stage of Asian history. Throughstipulating and presenting a new hypothetical spatial concept of “ MaritimeAsia,” we proclaimed our interest in portraying a new Asian history centeredon the seas or an image of world history seen from Asia. The spatial concept	  * Professor, Kobe Women’s University

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Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia Vol. 5 2014of “maritime Asia,” however, does not completely eliminate continentalregions. Even while we maintain our emphasis and focus on the seas, wealways keep the trends on the continent, which informs the backdrop of ourresearch, in our line of vision. Our stance is to consider maritime history
within the interconnectivity of both land and sea.
It might be considered surprising that the Research Group of Maritime
Asian History is unlike other societies in that it is not a fixed or delimitedorganization that charges membership fees for support and operation. Ourmembership-specific mailing list is uploaded on the Web. By registering one’s
name on the list, anyone can join the organization and receive information on
regular meetings and study tours. Whoever can participate at any given timeholds the regular meetings and various events, making operation of theresearch group very casual. As of December 2013 the number of ourmembers totaled about two hundred. We have established an office in theresearch center of the Asian History Department at Osaka University in orderto manage the mailing list and handle regular meetings and study tours.
Graduate students and recent PhDs who majored in Southeast Asian history
and are affiliated with the research center are in charge of managing theoffice.
The perennial activities of our research group are the regular meetings
that are held every month except during extended university breaks such as insummer and spring. When the group was first founded, we took turns reading
Rekidai hōan (Precious Documents of Successive Generations)—diplomaticrecords of the Ryūkyū Kingdom—and other historical materials, and gave
presentations on our individual research areas. Today we only give presentations on our research. We also periodically conduct outings to exhibitions andsponsor study tours related to marine history. In recent years we frequently
have sponsored joint meetings with other research societies and scientificresearch groups. Participants in the meetings often include scholars fromKorea, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Great Britain, America, and other foreigncountries.
Our research group celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2003. In Novemberof that year, we held our commemorative symposium, titled “The Potential ofMaritime Asian History,” in Naha, Okinawa. We chose Okinawa for ourvenue because Okinawa’s history, which has been a cornerstone of Maritime
Asia, has played an enormous role in the area. The core members of ourgroup, Momoki Shirō, Fujita Akiyoshi, Okamoto Hiromich, Fukazawa Akito,and myself, were the main speakers at the commemorative symposium. Our
guest speaker was Geoffrey Wade from the Asia Research Institute at theNational University of Singapore, who talked about research trends in Europeand America on Asian maritime history. The symposium provided a forum for

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interaction with the world-famous scholar of Southeast Asian history, Anthony
Reid, who was director of the Asia Research Institute, and led to his collaboration with the COE program, as I will discuss below.
When our research group celebrated its tenth anniversary, the OsakaUniversity 21 st Century Center of Excellence Program “InterfaceHumanities”(2002-2006) had just been launched. The core members of ourgroup contributed to the field of historiography in the program along withother research groups in global history and Central Asian history. One of theaccomplishments of the COE Program was the publication of a book edited
mainly by Momoki Shirō, Fujita Kayoko, Hasuda Takashi, and myself. Thebook, entitled Kaiiki Ajiashi kenkyū nyūmon (Introduction to the Research onMaritime Asian History), was published by Iwanami Shoten in 2008.
Although limited to scholarly trends in Japan, as an introductory text thatsurveys and explains the findings and trends in the enormous volume ofscholarship on “maritime history” , it was a first in the world. The year thebook was published, 2008, also marked the fifteenth anniversary of ourresearch group. From the initial planning stages we had envisioned the bookbeing translated into foreign languages. In 2012, four years after its publication, a Korean version was published by the Institute for Marine and Island
Cultures at Mokpo National University. We are currently proceeding withplans for Chinese and English versions of the text. In addition, papers
presented at international symposia jointly organized by the Maritime History
cluster of the COE program and the Asia Research Institute at National
University of Singapore have finally been compiled into a collection of essaysedited by Fujita Kayoko, Momoki Shirō, and Anthony Reid entitled Offshore
Asia: Maritime Interactions in Eastern Asia before Steamships, which waspublished by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore in 2013.
Our research group celebrated its twentieth anniversary in 2013 by holding
an international symposium in Mokpo, Korea in December of that year.
Mokpo was chosen as the venue because that area is where the Shinan shipwreck, which is a very valuable artifact for studying maritime Asian history,was discovered. The discovery has provided a focal point for momentous
strides in Korean history of the seas and underwater archaeology. As
mentioned earlier, the Korean translation of the book, Kaiiki Ajiashi kenkyūnyūmon, was done by the Institute for Marine and Island Cultures at Mokpo
National University. As it happend, the thirtieth anniversary of the Institute ofIsland Cultures in 2013 coincided with the twentieth anniversary of ourresearch group. The symposium at Mokpo was thus a commemorative event
sponsored by both our research group and the Institute of Island Cultures. Thesymposium was entitled “Twenty Years from the Founding of the Maritime
Asia History Society and Thirty Years since the Founding of the Institute of126

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Island Cultures: History as Seen from Islands and the Sea.” The National
Research Institute of Maritime Cultural Heritage, which cosponsored theevent and has a permanent exhibit of the Shinan shipwreck, was the venue forthe symposium. Four members of our group, Okamoto Hiromichi, HasudaTakashi, Nakamura Tsubasa, and myself, gave presentations in addition to, thepresentations given by four members on the Korean side, Kang Bong-yong(Director, Institute for Marine and Island Cultures), Kim Gung-Ok (Professorof History, Mokpo University), Lee Kanguk (Professor, Mokpo University),
and Kang Wonchun (National Research Institute of Maritime Cultural
Heritage). The day following the symposium, students from Mokpo
University joined us in exploring Jeongdo Island, from where we could see
the site of the Shinran shipwreck.
In recent years the rapid development of maritime history research ― asrepresented by the Maritime Cross-Cultural Exchange in East Asia andFormation of Japanese Traditional Culture: Interdisciplinary Approach
Focusing on Ningbo sponsored by Scientific Research on Priority Areas(2005-2009, abbreviated as Ninpuro) ― has drawn much attention within thefield of Japanese history. Compared with such a large-scale research project,
the research activities of our Research Group of Maritime Asian History seem
minor. Nevertheless, as I have explained here, our own activities over the past
twenty years have indeed contributed to the development of maritime history
research in Japan, an achievement in which we take pride. We hope tocontinue to contribute fresh approaches to research on maritime Asian history
from our locale in Osaka in order to develop further a global approach tomaritime history research that includes Japan. Please see our public blog on
the website below if you are interested in our organization.
http://plaza.rakuten.co.jp/kaiikiofficial/