Fishing for a New World Order in the Twentieth-Century Indo-Pacific

Abstract

Abstract This article argues that the territorialization of the ocean was one of the crucial inflection points of the twentieth century, transforming the sovereignty of states and profoundly reshaping their territories. In terms of scale, it is the most planetary of the many remappings that have marked the twentieth century. A close study of the globalization of the Japanese tuna industry serves to illustrate this transition and can help us understand why and how this process evolved. The Japanese Empire was a key actor in the transimperial hotspot of the Indo-Pacific, where multiple empires met and interacted. Transimperial “brokers”—both human migrants and migratory species such as tuna—moved across boundaries and created an open oceanic frontier dependent on shifting ecological conditions. These transimperial entanglements did not end in 1945. Their legacies weighed heavy in the decolonization process that followed the Second World War, with new states seeking to establish their territories at sea as well as on land. Japan’s success in maintaining access to fishing grounds shows how these entanglements transcended the so-called Age of Empires to influence the establishment of a new global order and a new oceanic sovereignty.