Different Faces, Different Spaces: Identifying the Islanders of Ogasawara

The Ogasawara Islands of Japan have been a site of colonisation, militarisation and occupation. The islands were first settled by European and Pacific Islanders from 1830 and then colonised by Japan in 1875. In 1944, at the height of World War II, the islands’ inhabitants were forced to evacuate to mainland Japan. The islands were under US Navy occupation from 1945 until 1952 and then US Navy administration from 1952 until their return to Japan in 1968. This paper situates the Ogasawara Islands in their historical context and focuses on the descendants of the original settlers and their unique and unusual position within Japanese history and society. The differences embodied in the descendants coupled with over 20 years under the US Navy have had profound effects that are still present within the community even today. Using ethnographic data, the paper explores the composite ways in which this community has been identified and self-identified. The paper theorises the link between space, place and identification and argues that the effects of social, cultural and political changes to the nation-space of the Ogasawara Islands have led to complex and conflicting forms of identification.