Atsuko Watanabe is Associate Professor at Kanazawa University, Japan. She obtained her PhD from the University of Warwick in 2012 and held an honorary research fellowship at the Department of Politics & International Studies. Currently, she is a vice-president of the International Studies Association Asia-Pacific. Her current project, funded by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, is on the global history of the concept of territory traveled from Europe to Japan in the late nineteenth century. Her publications have appeared, amongst others, in Telos, European Journal of International Relations, Political Geography, and International Studies Perspectives.

This talk delves into the evolving significance of the term 'Indo-Pacific' and its ongoing replacement of the 'Asia-Pacific' in political discourse. Beyond mere linguistic nuances, this shift has profund political implications, though the term's exact meaning and implications remain contested. This talk makes a dual contribution to this debate. Firstly, it endeavors to illuminate the Indo-Pacific concept by revisiting its historical origins during Japanese wartime, offering a nuanced perspective amidst the existing ambiguity. Second, drawing on the emergent literature on multiplicity, we explore how the term has historically invoked contrasting international relations in Japan. Initially introduced by Karl Haushofer to express the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere's ambit, the term's contemporary usage by the Japanese government contradicts its original intent, emphasizing the need to critically examine these contrasting historical contexts. This underscores the importance of examining the multiple imaginiations by different communities in the social space of international politics.