TY - JOUR
T1 - Japanese development consultancies and postcolonial power in southeast Asia
T2 - The case of burm0061’s Balu Chaung hydropower project
AU - Moore, Aaron
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan 2014.
Copyright:
Copyright 2015 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2014/9/1
Y1 - 2014/9/1
N2 - Through investigating the construction of Japan’s first wartime reparations project—the Balu Chaung Hydropower Station Number Two in Burma—this article traces the formation of postcolonial power relationships within Japan’s postwar technical aid system in Southeast Asia. Kubota Yutaka and his colleagues at Nippon Kōei, the development consultancy that planned and supervised the project, had long careers constructing dams and other infrastructure throughout Japan’s former empire in Asia. This article examines how the visions, policies, expertise, and relationships from their colonial experiences were reconfigured in the 1950s through large-scale infrastructure projects into a new, postcolonial technical aid network linking the United States, Japan, and Southeast Asia during the Cold War. In addition to analyzing the reconstituted power relations at one particular site, this article also examines Japan’s unique position as a major donor and receiver of foreign aid, thereby complicating conventional narratives of an advanced “West” assisting a developing Asia.
AB - Through investigating the construction of Japan’s first wartime reparations project—the Balu Chaung Hydropower Station Number Two in Burma—this article traces the formation of postcolonial power relationships within Japan’s postwar technical aid system in Southeast Asia. Kubota Yutaka and his colleagues at Nippon Kōei, the development consultancy that planned and supervised the project, had long careers constructing dams and other infrastructure throughout Japan’s former empire in Asia. This article examines how the visions, policies, expertise, and relationships from their colonial experiences were reconfigured in the 1950s through large-scale infrastructure projects into a new, postcolonial technical aid network linking the United States, Japan, and Southeast Asia during the Cold War. In addition to analyzing the reconstituted power relations at one particular site, this article also examines Japan’s unique position as a major donor and receiver of foreign aid, thereby complicating conventional narratives of an advanced “West” assisting a developing Asia.
KW - Balu Chaung
KW - Burma
KW - Cold War
KW - Hydropower
KW - Japanese empire
KW - Overseas development assistance
KW - Postcolonial
KW - Southeast Asia
KW - Technical aid
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84906961654&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84906961654&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1215/18752160-2416662
DO - 10.1215/18752160-2416662
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84906961654
SN - 1875-2160
VL - 8
SP - 297
EP - 322
JO - East Asian Science, Technology and Society
JF - East Asian Science, Technology and Society
IS - 3
ER -