Organizer and Chair: Lawrence T. Woods, University of Northern British Columbia
Discussants: Tomoko Akami, Australian National University; Charles W. Hayford,
Stanford University; William L. Holland, Former Secretary General of the IPR; Paul
F. Hooper, University of Hawai'i, Manoa; Nobuo Katagiri, Gumma Prefectural
Women's University; Lawrence T. Woods, University of Northern British Columbia
In December 1995, the once-revered but oft-forgotten Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR) will have been dead for as long as it was alive-35 years. The April 1996 annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) in Honolulu provides the first major opportunity to mark this anniversary, an opportunity made even more appropriate by the fact that Honolulu was the site of the first IPR conference in 1925. The members of the International Research Network on the IPR, having met in Honolulu in 1993 and Tokyo in 1995, look forward to sharing their findings with the wider AAS membership and are buoyed by the recent publication of Remembering the Institute of Pacific Relations: The Memoirs of William L. Holland, edited by Paul F. Hooper (Ryukei Shyosha, 1995). Dr. Holland, who worked for the IPR for 31 years and served as the organization's secretary general from 1946 to 1960, has agreed to participate in this round table, a format which he reminds us was pioneered by the IPR in its efforts to promote regional cooperation. The purpose of this session will be to explore the IPR's historical and contemporary relevance. What was the IPR's role in the professionalization of knowledge about the Asia-Pacific region? What lessons might today's regional organizations learn from the IPR story, from its successes and shortcomings? What can we say about its contributions to contemporary Asia-Pacific diplomacy and the broader interdisciplinary understanding of state-society, regional and international relations? Where and how does IPR fit, if at all?