Masamichi (Marro) Inoue | University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences

Masamichi (Marro) Inoue

Professor, Japan Studies

Faculty Director, International Village Living Learning Program

As a cultural anthropologist, I have explored U.S. military base issues in Okinawa (Japan's southernmost prefecture) from historical and ethnographic perspectives for years. My second book on this subject--The Community of Nuchi Du Takara ("Life Is the Ultimate Treasure") in Postwar Okinawa (University of Michigan Press)--was published in 2025. My fieldwork-based ethnographic work also includes research on campus policing in the U.S., and I am now launching a new project regarding the Orthodox Church in Japan.

I have taught a wide range of courses, including Japanese language courses, Japanese cultural studies courses, fieldwork-based ethnographic writing courses, and a connected course for the International Village Living Learning Program, for which I have been serving as faculty director since Fall 2020.

Contact Information

msinoue@uky.edu

1465 Patterson Office Tower

859-257-7024

Education

Ph.D., Duke University, 1999 (Cultural Anthropology)

Research Interests

cultural anthropology
Cultural studies
Japan
Okinawa
the U.S.

Affiliations

Japan Studies
Masters in Teaching World Languages
Modern & Classical Languages Literatures & Cultures
Diversity and Inclusion
Global Asias
Foreign Languages and International Economics (FLIE)

Selected Publications

Selected Publications:

2025: The Community of Nuchi Du Takara ("Life Is the Ultimate Treasure") in Postwar Okinawa: Local Subjectivity within and against Empire. University of Michigan Press. https://press.umich.edu/Books/T/The-Community-of-Nuchi-Du-Takara-Life-Is-the-Ultimate-Treasure-in-Postwar-Okinawa2
2019: “Between Surveillance and Sousveillance: Or, Why Campus Police Feel Vulnerable Precisely Because They Gain Power.”Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 49(2): 229-256. https://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/IY7RQBPQEAKF6EGNDFYG/full
2017: "On the Okinawan Multitude: Toward a New Policy Paradigm for Reorganization-Reduction of the U.S. Bases in Okinawa." Georgetown Journal of Asian Affairs 3(2):47-57.
2017: Okinawa and the U.S. Military: Identity Making in the Age of Globalization, with a New Preface. New York: Columbia University Press. (This is a paperback edition of the book published in hardcover originally in 2007. A new preface [25 pages] is added to this paperback edition.)
2014: "アジールとしての「日本」：アメリカの大学キャンパスにおけるオリエンタリズムの変容と解体 [”Japan” as a Sanctuary: Transformation and Dissolution of Orientalism on a University Campus in the U.S.] 文化人類学 [Japanese Journal of Cultural Anthropology] 79(1): 25-47.
2013: "生権力の臨界ーーアメリカの大学警察を人類学する［The Critical State of Biopower: Anthropologizing a University Police Department in the United States］”　文化人類学　[Japanese Journal of Cultural Anthropology] 77(4): 499-522
2012: “Reclaiming the Universal: Intercultural Subjectivity in the Life and Work of Endo Shusaku.” Southeast Review of Asian Studies (SERAS) 34: 153-170.
2011: “Cocco’s musical intervention in the US base problems: traversing a realm of everyday cultural sensibilities in Okinawa.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 12:3, 321-340.
2007: Okinawa and the U.S. Military: Identity Making in the Age of Globalization. New York: Columbia University Press.
2004: “‘We are Okinawans but of a Different Kind’: New/Old Social Movements and the U.S. Military in Okinawa.” Current Anthropology 45 (1): 85-104.
2004: “当事者の共同体、権力、市民の公共空間ーー流用論の新しい階梯と沖縄基地問題 [The Community of Subjects, Power, and the Public-Sphere of Citizens: A New Stage of the Theory of Appropriation and the U.S. Base Problems in Okinawa].” 民族学研究 [Ethnological Inquiry] 68 (4): 534-554.
2002: “グローバル化のなかの「沖繩イニシアティブ」論争―記憶、アイデンティティ、基地問題 [The Debate over the ‘Okinawa Initiative’ in the Age of Globalization: Memory, Identity, and the U.S. Base Problems].” 思想 [Thought] 933: 246-267.
1998: “海上ヘリ基地問題と日本人類学ーー沖縄県名護市辺野古でのフィールドワークの覚え書き [The Offshore Base Dispute and Japanese Anthropology: Notes from the Field in Henoko, Nago City, Okinawa].” 現代思想 [Modern Thought] 26 (7): 228-244.
1997: Inoue, Masamichi, S., John Purves, and Mark Selden. “Okinawa Citizens, U.S. Bases, and the Dugong.” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 29 (4): 82-86.