Japan’s Ocean Borderlands: Nature and Sovereignty

The remains of Japan’s once extensive Asian-Pacific empire include over 14,000 mostly uninhabited islands that range as far as 1,100 miles from the country’s five main islands and collectively define a maritime exclusive economic zone nearly 12 times as large as the country’s land territory. Kreitman describes the history of six island groups that were once alive with sea birds but became barren after hunters killed them off for their plumage and guano miners dug up the landscape. Before and during World War II, Japan feuded with the United States and other powers over control of these islands. Today, they have achieved new importance, both as sites of nature conservation and as the source of exclusive economic rights under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Working in the eye-opening field of “political ecology,” Kreitman shows how exploiting nature and conserving it both serve to “perform” sovereignty.