Maritime and island culture along the Kuroshio Current

This guest editorial introduces Island Studies Journal’s special thematic section on ‘Maritime and island culture along the Kuroshio Current’. Although the islands of Far East Asia are typically studied individually or within national frameworks, they are in fact joined together by the Kuroshio Current, the world’s second-large ocean current. Over the millennia, lifestyles, technologies, religions, and other cultural practices have spread along the Kuroshio Current, leading to the formation of a distinctive oceanic cultural sphere. In order to understand the island cultures within the region, one must take into account interconnections facilitated by the Kuroshio Current. This special thematic section includes papers on sea deity beliefs, pork food culture, and place naming on islands along the Kuroshio Current, with special focus on Jeju (Korea), Zhoushan Archipelago (China), Green Island (Taiwan), and the Ryūkyū Islands (Japan).