In mediating the human experience of space, communications technologies played an important role along with means of transportation. When wireless telegraphy was introduced to Japan around the turn of the twentieth century, it was not just the military that made successful use of the incipient technology. The adoption of shipboard wireless telegraphy in trans-Pacific navigation helped reshape the Japanese spatial experience of the world’s largest ocean, thanks to extensive coverage by Japanese newspapers. However, technology never marches forward in a straight line as many published histories of wireless telegraphy suggest. The lack of inter-continental wireless telegraphy contributed to communication congestion across the Pacific during World War I, forcing the Japanese government to relax its monopoly while the Japanese business community abandoned its endeavor to build new trans-Pacific submarine cables in favor of wireless telegraphy. By the early 1930s, this public-private partnership enabled Japan to become a major player in international wireless telegraphy which dominated trans-Pacific communication. This article demonstrates that space and technology became mutually constitutive so that the Pacific Ocean could best be described as a single spatial-technological construct.

In mediating the human experience of space, communications technologies played an important role along with means of transportation. When wireless telegraphy was introduced to Japan around the turn of the twentieth century, it was not just the military that made successful use of the incipient technology. The adoption of shipboard wireless telegraphy in trans-Pacific navigation helped reshape the Japanese spatial experience of the world’s largest ocean, thanks to extensive coverage by Japanese newspapers. However, technology never marches forward in a straight line as many published histories of wireless telegraphy suggest. The lack of inter-continental wireless telegraphy contributed to communication congestion across the Pacific during World War I, forcing the Japanese government to relax its monopoly while the Japanese business community abandoned its endeavor to build new trans-Pacific submarine cables in favor of wireless telegraphy. By the early 1930s, this public-private partnership enabled Japan to become a major player in international wireless telegraphy which dominated trans-Pacific communication. This article demonstrates that space and technology became mutually constitutive so that the Pacific Ocean could best be described as a single spatial-technological construct.

This article examines the techno-cultural process of accommodating, training, and qualifying the Japanese as pilots responsible for Pacific flights in the decade after the end of the allied occupation of Japan in 1952. There were two related modes of qualifying Japanese pilots, both of which created traffic of people, knowledge, and machines across the Pacific: One was the slow, politicized process of permitting Japanese pilots to fly again and training them with reference to American models of flying. Another mode of qualification consisted of measuring and recording the bodily differences between Japanese and American pilots, so that Japanese bodies could fit into American-designed cockpits and flying garments. Under the postwar technopolitical regime and given lingering racial perceptions, the terms and norms of the flying body and practice were mostly set by the American system, to which the Japanese worked hard to adapt. In this process, the cockpit and the Pacific served as crucial frames of reference for the Japanese. With its focus on pilot training and qualification, this article aims to bring together the histories of aviation, science, and U.S.-Japan relations and to situate them in the Pacific as a physical, imaginary, and technopolitical space.

This article examines the techno-cultural process of accommodating, training, and qualifying the Japanese as pilots responsible for Pacific flights in the decade after the end of the allied occupation of Japan in 1952. There were two related modes of qualifying Japanese pilots, both of which created traffic of people, knowledge, and machines across the Pacific: One was the slow, politicized process of permitting Japanese pilots to fly again and training them with reference to American models of flying. Another mode of qualification consisted of measuring and recording the bodily differences between Japanese and American pilots, so that Japanese bodies could fit into American-designed cockpits and flying garments. Under the postwar technopolitical regime and given lingering racial perceptions, the terms and norms of the flying body and practice were mostly set by the American system, to which the Japanese worked hard to adapt. In this process, the cockpit and the Pacific served as crucial frames of reference for the Japanese. With its focus on pilot training and qualification, this article aims to bring together the histories of aviation, science, and U.S.-Japan relations and to situate them in the Pacific as a physical, imaginary, and technopolitical space.

This article covers the controversy that followed the March 16, 1893 escape of prisoner Yosaku Imada to the Japanese warship, the Naniwa , which was docked in Honolulu. Imada’s act of seeking refuge onboard the ship occurred at a time when the provisional government of Hawai‘i had no extradition treaty with Japan. This created a diplomatic event that entangled leaders from Japan, the provisional government, and the United States. To further complicate matters, Issei and Meiji government officials were also pressing for franchise in the Islands, a right that a majority of the community did not have access to at home. By placing Imada’s escape and the Issei fight for voting rights in the context of the uncertainty that followed the January 17, 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, this article emphasizes Hawai‘i’s relevance as a site where inter-imperial dynamics aligned with competing settler colonialisms.

In 1982, Japan launched its Fifth Generation Computer Systems project (FGCS), designed to develop intelligent software that would run on novel computer hardware. As the first national, large-scale artificial intelligence (AI) research and development (R&D) project to be free from military influence and corporate profit motives, the FGCS was open, international, and oriented around public goods. Although the FGCS did not plan any commercialized technologies, many American computer experts portrayed it as an economic threat to U.S. dominance in computing and the global economy—and policymakers around the developed world believed them and funded AI projects of their own. Later, however, the FGCS was remembered as a failure. Why? This article recasts the FGCS as an interstice in the shift from a state-funded regime of American science organization to the neoliberal privatized regime of R&D now ascendant around the world. By exploring how notions of economic competitiveness and national security shaped R&D, this article reveals AI to be a product of contingent choices by multiple actors—nation-states, government bureaucracies, corporations, and individuals—rather than the outcome of deterministic technological forces.

In 1982, Japan launched its Fifth Generation Computer Systems project (FGCS), designed to develop intelligent software that would run on novel computer hardware. As the first national, large-scale artificial intelligence (AI) research and development (R&D) project to be free from military influence and corporate profit motives, the FGCS was open, international, and oriented around public goods. Although the FGCS did not plan any commercialized technologies, many American computer experts portrayed it as an economic threat to U.S. dominance in computing and the global economy—and policymakers around the developed world believed them and funded AI projects of their own. Later, however, the FGCS was remembered as a failure. Why? This article recasts the FGCS as an interstice in the shift from a state-funded regime of American science organization to the neoliberal privatized regime of R&D now ascendant around the world. By exploring how notions of economic competitiveness and national security shaped R&D, this article reveals AI to be a product of contingent choices by multiple actors—nation-states, government bureaucracies, corporations, and individuals—rather than the outcome of deterministic technological forces.