International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS)

This PhD dissertation examines a hitherto under-researched aspect of the Second World War in Asia: the experiences of civilians interned by the Japanese. Through the study of a representative group of internment camps – Stanley in Hong Kong and Changi and Sime Road in Singapore – the thesis provides a new dimension to research on colonial societies in British Asia. It demonstrates that British colonial rule did not cease to exist in the Far East during the war, but merely continued within the camps under the constraints imposed by the Japanese. It discusses how colonial power was retained in these unusual captive laboratories, and the ways in which the internees played a vital role in the restoration of British rule at the end of the war.

This dissertation argues that these internment camps were effectively microcosms of British colonial society in the Far East. Using a multi-dimensional approach to memory sources, it examines how tensions of race, class, nationality, religion and gender were magnified by imprisonment. This work thus casts new light on the interplay between race, class and gender in British colonial societies under extreme pressure.

The evidence also suggests that the Japanese conquest had given the old colonial rulers an enforced sabbatical in which to sit back and take stock of their pre-war deficiencies, and a considerable effort was made by the interned colonials at devising strategies in anticipation of the social, economic and political orders in the post-war colonial world.

Also, what emerges most compellingly from this study is the extent, hitherto unrecognised, to which the internees were connected to the outer world, and how they were aided by non-captive Europeans, the Asian population, and even by the Japanese themselves. This dissertation also elucidates the ambiguous wartime experiences of neutrals, third nationals, non-interned Europeans, camp dodgers and Allied civilians who were retained at their posts in the occupied cities, and explores sensitive, and largely un-researched, issues of wartime collaboration and co-operation between Europeans and the Japanese.