This article, now also a book chapter, came out of work I was doing analysing the Meiji-era (1868-1912) applications for travel permits (ryoken 旅券) from Fukuoka prefecture held in the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Archives - some of which you can see on this page. I was tracing the different routes that people from various parts of Fukuoka prefecture and its neighbouring prefectures made across the Asia Pacific, especially their reasons for travel and the kinds of communities and occupations they left behind and why.

My analysis of these ryoken applications revealed the qualitative differences between Fukuokans’ overseas migration to Hawai‘i and their travel to Korea, via networks of regional migration. The article shows how these movements connected the dual processes of domestic urbanization and industrial growth with Japan’s expansion into Asia. Ultimately, I argue, the movement of Fukuoka’s Meiji migrants helped to transform their home from a domestic periphery into a staging ground for Japan’s ‘imperial urbanization’ and brought Fukuoka within a new region spanning the Tsushima Strait.