Faculty

Dr. Daniel Iwama is Assistant Professor in the Department of Planning, Geography and Environmental Studies. In 2023 he received his PhD in Urban Planning from the University of California, Los Angeles. Daniel’s dissertation, “‘War by other means’; Military base return and the local politics of realignment on Okinawa Island 1995-present” examined processes of land repossession in what is known today as Okinawa Prefecture. He was an international fieldwork fellow of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and held a doctoral fellowship from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Daniel is most interested in planning, and how forces of militarism interrupt and are interrupted by Indigenous relations with land and sea in the Pacific. His research interests attend to planning history and theory, empire, social movements and jurisdiction, and extend to matters of diaspora and community development. Daniel’s academic research has been published by the Journal of Historical Geography and the International Journal of Okinawan Studies. His popular scholarship has appeared in the Boston Review and Yellowhead Institute.

• PhD, Urban Planning, University of California, Los Angeles
• MA, Urban and Regional Planning (Indigenous Community Planning), University of British Columbia
• BA, Philosophy, University of British Columbia

Social/Political Geography; Land-Use Planning; Planning History/Theory; Global Indigenous Politics; Community Development; Diaspora Studies; GIS

I am currently engaging with the US military government archives, examining the relationship between land-use planning and dispossession in post-war Okinawa. This is a planning history project, primarily interested in the historical conditions of fungible legal regimes which consolidate colonial territory. This work has broad relevance to Indigenous geographies of displacement and resistance in colonial contexts worldwide.

I am increasingly interested in the possibilities and limits of diaspora organizations, not just as loci of community development but as hubs of identity formation and politicization especially among Asian diasporas.

I’m always interested in mentorship possibilities. If you have an idea for a Directed Reading, Master’s Thesis or Honours Project that you think will intersect with any of my interests, please reach out.

Peer-Reviewed

Iwama, D. (2021). Tides of dispossession: Property in militarized land and the coloniality of military base conversion in Okinawa. Okinawan Journal of Island Studies, 2, 93–114.

Iwama, D., Umemoto, K., & Masuda, K. (2021). Calling Nikkei to empire: Diaspora and trans/nationalism in the redevelopment of historic Little Tokyo. Journal of Historical Geography, 74, 44–54.

Popular Scholarship

Iwama, D. (2021). 'The Islands Where People Live’. [re-titled by editors as “The Battle for Okinawa”]. Boston Review.

Iwama, D. (2018). On the road to the new reserve: Considering Canada’s preferred path to land restitution [Policy Report]. Yellowhead Institute.