Maro Dotulong

I am currently writing a dissertation on a group of migrant laborers from rural Japan who started working as pearl shell divers along the northern coasts of Australia from the late nineteenth century onward. This dissertation posits the shell diver, the pearl oyster, and the ocean (among many others) as equally important nodes in the network of historical actors that forms the fabric of any historical narrative. My master’s dissertation, which was awarded the Ivan Morris Memorial Prize from the British Association for Japanese Studies, brought to light new materials on a neglected thinker in Japanese intellectual history from the depths of the colonial archives of the Dutch East Indies. All together, my studies straddle across the vast area known as the Pacific Basin and various categories of history writing. Among them I include the cultural, environmental, intellectual, diasporic, and, perhaps most notably, transnational history of modern Japan. I am interested in utilizing experimental forms of representation that may assist in mapping marginal epistemologies, documenting migrant experiences, and understanding the role of nonhuman actors in history.

The following organizations have generously supported my doctoral research thus far: Het Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, Stichting dr. Hendrik Muller’s Vaderlandsch Fonds, Stichting de Fundatie van de Vrijvrouwe van Renswoude te ‘s-Gravenhage, The Sasakawa Fund Scholarship – University of Oxford, Faculty of Oriental Studies, and the Japan Foundation Endowment Committee.