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This article builds on rich empirical data following our unexpected discovery of a local practice to circumvent a stressful and counterproductive work environment due to distrust at the Port of Tema in Ghana. Using theoretical work on networks, trust, and humor, as well as extensive ethnographic fieldwork, we found that the humorous atmosphere at the regularly held physical berthing meetings fosters a sense of community, which enables competing professions, private companies, and public institutions to manage their mutual distrust. In an environment where trust among competitors is unrealistic, we argue that the objective of the performance of humor and transparency at the physical berthing meetings is the management of distrust rather than the creation of trust. The meetings have, gradually, grown to serve as a pragmatic local stakeholder adaptation to the challenges posed by universally perceived politicized, opaque, and corrupt business practices at the Port of Tema and beyond. In conclusion, we posit that our empirical findings allow us to identify the potential of and gaps in theories about trust and humor in understanding the dynamics of coping strategies among competitors in business settings that are characterized by unethical practices.

This study presents answers to the question of how one dictionary can help us understand the implications for lexicography of limited access to other dictionaries. We carefully analyzed the microstructure and macrostructure of Abel-Rémusat’s Chinese-French dictionary manuscript Dictionnaire chinois dated 1808 by systematically tracing the references noted at each entry in the dictionary. Based on his meticulous references to a large variety of Chinese language sources, this article confirms that Abel-Rémusat finished his first draft in 1808. However, tracing the references to a wide variety of sources including many references to Dictionnaire chinois, français et latin [Chinese, French, and Latin Dictionary, 1813], published in 1813 by Chrétien-Louis-Joseph de Guignes (1759–1845), we re-date the manuscript. This discovery allowed us to understand how Abel-Rémusat 1) used different types of resources when dictionaries of Chinese and various European languages were unavailable and 2) compensated initially by inventing his own macrostructure, microstructure and systems for retrieving Chinese characters until he could consult other dictionaries that offered him guidance and inspired him to make corrections in his manuscript. Our findings show how the resources available determined his approach to lexicography and lead us to conclude that he gradually developed his approach based on a combination of inspiration from and confusion caused by the limited, but very diverse resources, he located and referenced.

Summary During his work on his Chinese and English Dictionary (1842–1843) Walter Henry Medhurst (1796–1857) dramatically changed his compilation strategy by shifting from depending almost exclusively on Robert Morrison’s (1782–1834) Chinese-English dictionary, Zidian 字典 (1815–1823) to depending on multiple sources including Kangxi zidian 康熙字典 (1716), Morrison’s Wuche yunfu 五車韻府 (1819–1820), and Medhurst’s own A Dictionary of the Hok-këèn Dialect of the Chinese Language (1832). By applying Lexicographic Archaeology to four linguistic case studies, this article discusses the reasons for this unusual lexicographical phenomenon. The authors argue that changes in information in Morrison’s Zidian after the 41st radical influenced Medhurst’s choices.

Our study set out to explore the relationship between legitimacy in the form of social license that stakeholders grant the National Single Window Project (NSWP) and port efficiency at the Port of Tema, as well as bounding conditions on this relationship. We collected stakeholder legitimacy data in line with the Social License to Operate (SLO) framework on the National Single Window Project implementation at the port and stakeholder-perceived port efficiency in Tema. We found that there is an Ո-shaped relationship between legitimacy and port efficiency. We also found that port cooperation and relational intensity dampens the relationship between legitimacy and port efficiency. Our study offers an alternative to perspectives of port management that view ports as isolated units which provides a partial understanding of their functioning. We opine that viewing ports as networks of stakeholders provides an improved understanding.

Som en del af sin samlede udenrigs- og sikkerhedspolitiske udredning, vil regeringen også nytænke sin udviklingspolitik. At nytænke udviklingspolitik er ikke et uønsket, men snarere et længe tiltrængt projekt. Hele paradigmet omkring udvikling står til at blive udfordret, for eksempel af Den Afrikanske Union, Den Økonomiske Kommission for Afrika, Den Afrikanske Udviklingsbank og FN’s Udviklingsprogram. Den danske regering har taget udfordringen op, om end muligvis af helt andre grunde og på helt andre præmisser, end jeg ville have gjort. Som historiker ser jeg vores tidsforståelse som nøglen til fornyelse af udviklingspolitikken, og mener, vi bør begynde med at udfordre vores lineære forståelse af tid og dermed problematisere værdsættelsen af idéer om fremdrift.

Interactions between the African and Asian continents from the 1990s have increasingly taken place without the intermediation of Europe and North America. Although still partly defined by or framed as a reaction to European and North American interactions with African and Asian countries, the current linkages between Africa and Asia such as those related to development cooperation form an alternative to development cooperation efforts initiated by European or North American countries. Furthermore, the African and Asian stakeholders have defined South-South Cooperation to encompass many other aspects of cooperation than development.In an attempt to answer the question how Africa-Asia regional partnerships and South-South development cooperation (SSDC) have influenced each other in shaping South-South cooperation (SSC) since the turn of the Millennium, this chapter identifies two shifts. Firstly, the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) from 2001 outlined an explicitly common African development agenda, in which African countries take more responsibility for their own development and, thereby, ensure their own ability to manage external partners. In 2005, the first Summit of the New Asia-Africa Strategic Partnership (NAASP) explicitly referred to the NEPAD framework. The second shift came ten years later at the second NAASP Summit in 2015, when a general climate of reconsidering the aid paradigm contributed to a move away from a development to a public-private partnership focus. The trend favoring private sector involvement and responsibility in, for example, the aid-to-trade modality adopted by the UN system is similar to Japan’s aid scheme since its inception in the 1950s. Asian partners have long officially involved private sector stakeholders in their partnerships with various African partners. In February 2015, the Japanese government explicitly emphasized the role of Japanese companies in its New Development Cooperation Charter. Many other northern partners have followed suit, for example the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Denmark (Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2015: 13; Danish Foreign Ministry 2016). By analyzing the documents of NEPAD and NAASP in their contemporary historical context, the chapter illustrates how they signal attempts at and limitations of cooperation in a climate of competition among partners from the same and from different regions.

This paper is the first qualitative micro case study of one aspect of globalization: personal networks as a concrete outcome of development assistance spending. The empirical findings related in this paper present circumstantial evidence that Japanese foreign aid has contributed to globalization over the past 60 years by establishing channels for interactions, exchanges, interdependencies, and the circulation of persons. Notably, it analyzes the networks that have been deliberately encouraged by Japanese aid among alumni from Japanese training courses since 1959. The analyses are based on alumni newsletters since 1961, alumni societies since 1964, and alumni conventions since 1986 that distinguish Japanese aid programs by being formal and permanent channels of communication. This is a typical positive externality that is difficult to capture in the usual aid effectiveness studies, because it works in the longer run and in ways that are unrelated to individual projects. The main argument is that the formal channels have provided the alumni with a network, which they can choose to activate for concrete impact.

The re-vitalization of indigenous languages depends on political and legal support and the implementation of language rights depends on knowledge of vocabulary and grammar structures of the individual languages. Throughout the nineteenth century world, compilers of dictionaries adapted indigenous languages to match standards defined in nation-building and, thereby, enabled latent possibilities for indigenous populations to re-vitalize their languages in connection with the United Nations Year for iIndigenous Peoples in 1993, and the first United nations decade for Indigenous Peoples, 1995-2004. This article focuses on dictionaries of the languages of the Ainu populations in the borderlands between the nation-states of Japan and Russia. The main argument is that the Ainu Cultural Promotion Act promulgated in 1997 had a significant impact on the production and purpose of Ainu dictionaries. The dictionaries prior to 1997 functioned, predominantly, as records, which contributed to the increased visibility of Ainu populations inside and outside Japan in the immediate national interest of Japan. Whereas the dictionaries published after 1997 are intended to enable active use of Ainu language today. An important sub-point is that the post-1997 Ainu dictionaries rely heavily on dictionaries, word lists, and grammar books compiled before 1997, which have therefore come to supprt efforts to re-vitalize Ainu languages in the twenty-first century. The re-vitalization of indigenous languages depend on political and legal support and the imple-mentation of language rights depend on knowledge of vocabulary and grammar structures of the individual languages. Throughout the nineteenth century world, compilers of dictionaries adapted indigenous languages to match standards defined in nation-building and, thereby, enabled latent possibilities for indigenous populations to re-vitalize their languages in connection with the United Nations Year for Indigenous Peoples in 1993, and the first United Nations Decade for Indigenous Peoples, 1995–2004. This article focuses on dictionaries of the languages of the Ainu populations in the borderlands between the nation-states Japan and Russia. The main argument is that the Ainu Cultural Promotion Act promulgated in 1997 had a significant impact on the production and purpose of Ainu dictionaries. The dictionaries prior to 1997 functioned, predominantly, as records, which contributed to the increased visibility of Ainu populations inside and outside Japan in the immediate national interests of Japan, whereas the dictionaries published after 1997 are intended to enable the active use of Ainu language today. An important sub-point is that the post-1997 Ainu dictionaries rely heavily on dictionaries, word lists, and grammar books compiled before 1997, which have therefore come to support efforts to re-vitalize Ainu languages in the twenty-first century.

Stakeholders of two success story events negotiated an idea of development as individual entrepreneurship. The sixty-five-year-old Japanese Foreign Aid history includes stories of successes told by professionals from developing countries throughout the world. Their stories reflect the cultural and social as well as the economic impact. This paper is an analysis of who tell the stories, how they tell them, and variations within the stories in terms of content and focus. By combining the ‘who’ of individual, community, and national impact and the nature of impact with the agency of the people who tell about the successes, the paper illustrates and argues that the impact of foreign aid can be measured in many ways beyond economic growth. However, in order for a diverse impact to become measurable, we need the historians’ attention to individual stories over long periods of time. Institutions interested in evaluating the impact of foreign aid define criteria for success that can be measured preferably in numbers just as the investment in foreign aid is measured in amounts of money. This essay is about how a number of different stakeholders negotiate narratives of successful impact of private sector training programs partly financed by Japanese Official development Assistance (ODA).

The premise is that old and new relationships between Africa and Asia circumvent Europe and North America. By engaging the case of The World Network of Friends (WNF), I argue that for EJARN it is important also to consider the common challenges for Japan and Europe of possibly being less central in future world orders. Partners first introduced as participants and alumni of private sector training courses in Japan founded WNF in 1997. The members are alumni and alumni organizations in Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and South America, but also from the Former Eastern Europe. WNF members exchange invitations to training courses and partnerships for the development of human resources. The structure of and focus on human resource development is inspired by experiences of ODA financed courses in Japan and, thereby, fits Shimomura and Wang’s argument that ‘the notable difference between traditional and emerging donors is their experience of receiving aid.” Much literature on the ‘emerging donors’ focuses on the challenge they pose to the ‘DAC regime’ of conditionalities. However, this chapter will explore how the Africa-Asia regional partnerships and South-South development cooperation in the new millennium reflect historical experiences of trust and distrust by operationalizing G. Hosking’s concept of ‘strong thin trust’ in his book Trust: A History and S.A. Rompf’s identification of the ‘subjective experience of trust’ in his book Trust and Reality.

One significant and often overlooked outcome of technical assistance and overseas capacity development programmes is the inclusion of experts from developing countries in epistemic communities. The main argument of this article is that the formal network structure offered to alumni of Japanese technical assistance and capacity development programmes has provided experts from developing countries access to epistemic communities since the early 1960s. This exploration of an alternative way of understanding capacity development programmes shows how alumni have made the networks global by using the Japanese network structure responding to the multilateral United Nations Expanded Programme for Technical Assistance framework, which enables South–South and South–North connections.

In this short paper, I will present an overview and analysis of the content of greetings posted to the Association of Overseas Technical Scholarships (AOTS) facebook group in the context of the global reach of the AOTS alumni network. In my investigation of how Japanese ODA policies and practices have engendered global networks, I have frequented the Association of Overseas Technical Scholarships (AOTS)' Facebook group. In the wake of the earthquake on March 11, 2011, many greetings came in from alumni who have within the last 50 years attended overseas training courses in Japan, which have been organized by AOTS and partially funded by Japanese ODA channelled through the MITI, later MeTI. In this short paper, I will try to present an overview of the content of the greetings and analyze the greetings in the context of the global reach of the AOTS alumni network.

The aim of this book is to bring fresh perspectives and alternative views into the current debate on aid effectiveness and aid relationships. We do so through a number of case studies of Japanese and Nordic aid to various Asian countries, focusing on aid ownership and partnership at the implementation level. The authors, comprising Nordic, Japanese and other Asian scholars, bring in perspectives from aid recipient countries and donors that have hitherto not figured prominently in this debate. A main objective is to study aid relationships as seen from the recipient side. The fact that the study is situated in Asia, where we have both rapidly developing countries in which aid plays a less central role, such as China, Vietnam, and Thailand, as well as more aid-dependent countries such as Nepal, Sri Lanka and Mongolia, also gives a more varied picture of aid effectiveness than the dismal one often painted in studies from Africa.

This chapter focuses on alumni newsletters as memory developers. It explores how newsletters for alumni from training courses in Japan presented and contributed to developing memories in the post-war period. The newsletters are edited by Japanese staff and the Japanese editors have selected the memories. The memories referred to in the newsletters fall into two groups. The first group consists of the new personal memories of the alumni's own stay in Japan after the war, and the second group refers to war. The references to war focus on devastation as a contrast to post-war Japanese economic success and to Japan's aim to work for world peace. By analysing how alumni newsletters for trainees and fellows who had spent time in Japan recounted war experiences, the chapter considers when and how war resurfaced and negated Japanese efforts to introduce new shared pasts in the name of development assistance. Keywords: alumni newsletters; development assistance; economic success; Japanese; post-war period; world peace

Japan and the Nordic countries have emerged as major donors in Nepal over the past three decades. During this time, development co-operation, or foreign aid as it is more commonly known in Nepal, has consolidated its position as a major component of the Nepalese state’s finances and gained increasing political influence. On the surface, Nepal has become a highly aid-dependent country and its relationship with its donors appears asymmetrical. However, the partner relationships forged during this time have created spaces for different working modalities and the Nepalese have actually exercised a considerable degree of ‘ownership’ both in their basic political choices and in various aspects of aid management. This chapter suggests that this has been a long, and by no means unfinished, learning process on both sides. While the donors have gained insights into the complexities of Nepalese society and polity, the Nepalese have learned to cope with the different and continually changing approaches of different donors. Both sides have been seeking the limits of their influence. To understand this complex relationship the chapter takes a closer look at the histories of Japanese and Nordic aid relationships in Nepal.

Japan, modernitet, nation, krigsførelse

Udgivelsesdato: 5. august

Udgivelsesdato: marts

Udgivelsesdato: 2010

Udgivelsesdato: sommer

Aid relationships in Africa often rely on centuries old networks established by various flows of migrants, students, merchants, colonial administrators, and missionaries. The paper is a mapping of some of the concrete histories of connections between three African countries: Tanzania, Ghana, and Nigeria and their different partner countries in Asia and Europe. The main aim is to see Japanese and Danish/EU Africa strategies as part of a long history of a variety of stakeholders on the African continent. The paper is also a proposal for a larger research project partly inspired by the book Aid Relationship in Asia where the concept of 'donor management' evolved during an exploration of ownership in aid relationships. 'Donor management' requires the presence of several partner countries with different interests in and potential contributions to a country, which a government can then choose between or choose to combine in its own interest.

My experiences with Gluck’s insistence on inclusion of voices of scholars and practitioners in conversations about the past have inspired my choice to approach Japan from various perspectives and most recently from Ghana. As our professor, Gluck included texts by overseas scholars beyond the canon and oral testimonies of memory, as AAS president she insisted on the launching of ICAS, and, most recently, she and I met in Accra and Dar es Salaam at conferences addressing the need for more Asian Studies departments at African Universities. Gluck has practiced a firm belief that only in the conversations across boundaries - imagined and lived - can we truly learn and engage the world with our scholarship. My current research about shipping as global history brought me back to the immediate postwar Japan via the Black Star Shipping Line of Ghana, the Zim Navigation Services of IsraeI, and Maersk Line of Denmark. The entanglements of national shipping line endeavors illustrate the importance of global histories. Memories retold, archival sources, and conversations with scholars on five continents disrupt the silencing of global history dimensions in national shipping line histories, deepen my understanding of the histories of Japan, and make my contributions to global history more meaningful. Expanding our conversations by including voices from different academic practices, geographic and temporal positions, and personalities is key to deepening our understandings of the past and this I learned from Gluck.

Udgivelsesdato: sommer