Japan Relates: Australia, Asia, The World
Australia-Japan Relations and the Future of Japanese Studies
9th - 13th December 2006
Cable Beach Club Resort Broome, Western Australia
The conference will engage in a high level of discussion about the future of Japanese studies in the context of Australia-Japan relations and the expanding role of those two nations in Asia.
Broome is a thematically meaningful place for such a conference in 2006, the year designated by the Japanese and Australia governments as the Year of Exchange to celebrate a number of key developments in the relationship between the two countries. Japanese divers played a significant role in prewar Broome which was a melting pot of several cultures, and Japanese were quite influential in the establishment of Broome's postwar pearling industry. It is strategically placed on the doorstep of the Kimberleys - one of Australia's (and the world's) remote wildlife areas of world heritage significance.