{"id":414,"date":"2017-08-21T09:00:44","date_gmt":"2017-08-21T09:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/?p=414"},"modified":"2020-02-20T16:15:36","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T16:15:36","slug":"ptuc-in-kobe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/?p=414","title":{"rendered":"Intersecting port cities: PTUC members collaborate with the Port Cities Research Centre, Kobe, Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"

In June, four members of the history team at Portsmouth participated in a series of field trips, presentations, and workshops with academics from Kobe University in Japan. In this blog, one of\u00a0the <\/strong>founding members of the Port Towns and Urban Cultures research group<\/strong>, Dr Rob James, who is a senior lecturer in history, discusses the visit and what potential future opportunities the collaboration promises.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>As part of our goal to extend links with other institutions worldwide, four members of the University\u2019s Port Towns and Urban Cultures (PTUC) project, Dr Mel Bassett, Professor Brad Beaven, Dr Karl Bell and Dr Rob James, travelled to Kobe, Japan in late-June to meet scholars from the Port Cities Research Centre (PCRC) at Kobe University. The aim of the visit was to both collaborate on port city research and explore research interests between Portsmouth\u2019s and Kobe\u2019s academic communities. Both universities have strong research interests in history, literature, sociology, politics, education and languages, and during the visit we realized that there were great opportunities for working together.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The PTUC crew at the ‘Intersecting Port Cities’ workshop<\/p><\/div>\n

On the first day of the visit members from PTUC and PCRC gave presentations on their various research areas at the Intersecting Port Cities. Kobe and Portsmouth. Their History and Potentialities<\/a> workshop. This provided a chance for each of us to familiarize ourselves with both groups\u2019 research interests and start to think about ways we could develop future collaborations. While both Kobe and Portsmouth are port cities, they are very different in terms of their history and\u00a0social composition.\u00a0Portsmouth is a city with\u00a0deep naval roots, but Kobe’s port is more industrial, with strong commercial links to\u00a0large manufacturers such as Kawasaki. Due to its broader industrial base, Kobe is a wealthier city, but we learned that pockets of deprivation still existed, particularly in areas with a strong immigrant community. Despite\u00a0these economic and social differences between the ports, both\u00a0operated (and still do) as contact zones in which people from differing cultures meet and mix. Both are waterfront cities at the intersection of maritime and urban space, offering the chance of cultural exchange that both reinforces and challenges local, national and international boundaries. The comparative histories of Kobe and Portsmouth discussed in these workshops thus helped\u00a0us hone our methodologies and understanding of port cities in general.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Rob James presenting at the ‘Intersecting Port Cities’ workshop<\/p><\/div>\n

Although these research workshops focused on a comparative analysis of port cities, it became clear from\u00a0our discussions that there was the potential to work together on themes such as citizenship, ethnicity, \u2018race\u2019, education, translation and cultural transmission between East and West. All of these areas could involve academics from a range of disciplines at each university, and plans have been put into place to link researchers from both universities’ various faculties.\u00a0For example, Rob James’ research into the cinema culture of ports links well with the work being conducted by postdoctoral researchers at Kobe University, so plans are afoot to work on collaborative projects in which the cinema cultures of Kobe and Portsmouth are compared and contrasted. After this thought-provoking workshop we were treated to dinner on the\u00a0Luminous Kobe\u00a0II<\/em>\u00a0pleasure cruiser, and while we sailed around the city\u2019s harbour, eating an array of delicious food from sushi to Kobe beef, our PCRC partners continued to share fascinating stories about the development of the port of Kobe and its rich industrial, economic and social-cultural histories.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>During the following days we engaged in a variety of trips to areas of historical interest, such as Kobe\u2019s theatre district and \u2018foreign quarter\u2019, the Kobe Centre for Overseas Migration and Cultural Interaction, and the Kobe Planet Film Archive. These visits allowed us to see how identities in Kobe have been shaped and\u00a0negotiated, especially through the city’s economic migration and\u00a0its industries’ working communities. The visits\u00a0also gave us a fascinating insight into how the city has changed over time, particularly the ways in which the ebbs and flows of the economy have affected the city’s cultural development. Indeed, while walking around the city, it became clear to us that the mapping project we have established at Portsmouth (that tracks the\u00a0development of its ‘sailortown’ culture)\u00a0could also be rolled out in Kobe. Such a task would enable the diverse and multilayered heritage of Kobe to be captured and shared with anyone interested in understanding the port’s history. As well as being taken on these very informative trips covering the city\u2019s history, we were also introduced to the various outreach activities with which PCRC\u2019s members are involved, including the Kobe Foreigners Friendship Centre and Takatori Community Centre, where we were told about the ways in which minority communities have been given a \u2018voice\u2019 in the broader Kobe community. We also visited\u00a0Kobe City Archive and were introduced to many archival sources, including newspapers and trade directories,\u00a0that showed us what a wealth of material there is available for us to use to enable us to further explore the port\u2019s history while working collaboratively with academics at Kobe University.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Kobe theatre district<\/p><\/div>\n

In fact, many opportunities for collaboration were discussed across the four days of the workshops, and it was at the final workshop session where both research groups put forward areas where we had identified real prospects for working together in the future. There was very\u00a0clear potential to develop interdisciplinary projects that will showcase the research of both of our centres on the international stage. We also recognized opportunities to submit large funding bids to research councils that would allow us to fuse PTUC\u2019s European port town network with the Asian consortium of universities, and thus help us\u00a0to further explore the relationship between urban and maritime societies. In addition, we made initial plans for an international conference to be held jointly by the two centres, with plans for publications arising from the papers presented. We are also aiming to start a collaborative research project on Japanese culture and the West.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Kobe port from aboard the pleasure cruiser ‘Kobe Luminous II’<\/p><\/div>\n

Overall,\u00a0our visit to Kobe\u00a0helped us to establish strong links with Asia, and particularly Japan,\u00a0allowing us\u00a0to solidify the port towns\u2019 methodology while also establishing collaborative ways that the University of Portsmouth’s PTUC group could work with its new partner. Indeed, in discussions with our Kobe University colleagues, we have also identified opportunities for exchanges for both academics and students between the two institutions. We\u2019ll keep you posted with future developments!<\/p>\n

PTUC would like to thank the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation<\/a>, an organization that aims to support closer links between the UK and Japan, for its generous financial contribution to this trip.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Brad Beaven, Karl Bell, and\u00a0Rob James are founding members\u00a0of PTUC. Their\u00a0edited collection\u00a0Port Towns and Urban Cultures: International Histories of the Waterfront, c. 1700-2000<\/em>\u00a0is available to purchase from Palgrave MacMillan http:\/\/www.palgrave.com\/gb\/book\/9781137483157<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

All images author’s own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In June, four members of the history team at Portsmouth participated in a series of field trips, presentations, and workshops with academics from Kobe University in Japan. In this blog, one of\u00a0the founding members of the Port Towns and Urban Cultures research group, Dr Rob James, who is a senior lecturer in history, discusses the visit and what potential future opportunities the collaboration promises. As part of our goal to extend links with other institutions worldwide, four members of the University\u2019s Port Towns and Urban Cultures (PTUC) project, Dr Mel Bassett, Professor Brad Beaven, Dr Karl Bell and Dr Rob James, travelled to Kobe, Japan in late-June to meet scholars […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[45,26,47,50,43,46,48,44,40,22,42,49,21,35,41],"class_list":["post-414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-race","tag-archives","tag-cinema","tag-citizenship","tag-education","tag-ethnicity","tag-folklore","tag-languages","tag-literature","tag-maritime","tag-politics","tag-port-cities","tag-public-history","tag-sailortown","tag-sociology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/kobe-university-e1501681589647.jpg?fit=620%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p91PlX-6G","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=414"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":586,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions\/586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}