The 9th IMHA International Congress of Maritime History is promoted by IMHA – International Maritime History Association, and will be hosted in Busan (Republic of Korea) by IMA(International Institute of Maritime Affairs, Korea Maritime & Ocean University) and the Korean Association of Maritime History on July 19 – 24, 2024.
The main theme is “Oceans: Local Mobility, Global Connectivity” and the aim is to address multiple aspects of the relationship between humans and the oceans. Oceans were regarded by humans as barriers in ancient times, although, in modern times, they became routes for exploring, travelling and connecting peoples and worlds separated by spatial and cultural distance.

As with previous IMHA congresses, the meeting in Busan adopts a broad conception of maritime history, treating it as an interdisciplinary field that covers all historical periods, all regions of the world and all aspects of human interactions with the seas.

Program Committee

Institute of International Maritime Affairs was founded in May 2000 having the intention of stimulating the research works of humanities and social sciences with relation to the ocean and developing the interdisciplinary

activities with other research fields, as well as setting up the educational-industrial-governmental-academic complex and helping to make the policies for region developments. Since then, our institute has  accomplished systematically various researches on international maritime affairs, such as the sea port cities' cultures, the problems relating to harbors and shipping and maritime territorial disputes. 

Above all, our institute was  selected to the Humanities Korea Program of Korean Research Foundation in November 2008. As a result, it has been financed by the national treasury KRW 800 million and the school confrontation funds KRW 400 million every year, and will be financed KRW 12 billion during the next ten years.

Thank to these funds, we have consolidated our infrastructure in human and material greatly. Indebted to HK project. We wish to make a universal dispatch point of new studies(Cultural Interaction Studies of Sea Port Cities)

of our institute.

Cultural Interaction Studies of Sea Port Cities is correspondent to an urgent task of 21st century humanities which must go beyond the existing nation-states' borders and the divisive national consciousness. Though, our studies are distinguished from other research trends of humanities in that they premise the ocean as the space for 'communication and reciprocal vitalization, not the place of 'barriers and ruptures'.

More than 40 researchers of our institute, Including HK professors, HK research professors, research scholars, and research assistants, make the sea port cities with their research field and concentrate on the interdisciplinary reconstruction and research of the interchanges of people, information, and materials between the sea port cities; their transnational territoriality; their cultural hybridity and miscellaneity; and their relationships by means of the cooperative researches crossing various fields, such as history, literature, philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, public administration, sociology, and architecture.  

We have disseminated our findings through the regional connection activities that publicize and popularize our sources and informations; the subsequent generation cultivation activities in order to assure the durability and consistency of our researches; and the academic interchange activities that facilitate the network with other key institutions at home and abroad, hold the academic conferences, and publish an academic journal. Besides these activities, we have accomplished the research relating to the marine policies and the international logistics, and as well as, After all, the practical outcomes of our research will be not only corresponded to the urgent tasks of humanities, but also connected with the task that construct a network between Korean sea port cities and build up the inter-sea-port city, cooperative complex transcending the nation-states' border, such as super broad area between Busan and Fukuoka in the opening of the South Coast Age.

We, researchers of the Institute of International Maritime Affairs, hope to diffuse openly our research activities and finfings from the Institute and share them with you. Thank you.   

https://ima-e.imweb.me

With the 9th ICMH  held in 2024, Busan, it was founded with the opinion of the academic world that it needs a Korean partner society on December 2, 2022. The KAMH is an academic society dealing with the maritime-themed history, economy, culture, archeology, museum, folklore, and criticism. The KAMH have published 2 conferences, 2 joint academic conferences of the Korean Association of Shipping and Port Studies, and 2 academic journals.

IMHA The aim of the International Maritime History Association (IMHA) is to promote maritime history globally and facilitate collaboration between maritime researchers.
The IMHA has adopted a broad concept of maritime history, treating it as a discipline that covers dynamics in all aspects of humankind’s relationship with the world’s oceans and inland waterways from ancient times to the present.

In order to do so the IMHA promotes:

  -Studies in maritime histrry from ancient times to the present

  -Collaboration among maritime historians across the world;

  -Junior researchers within maritime history;

  -Maritime history within other fields of historical research;

  -Maritime history within other disciplines, which share a maritime focus;

  -Academic teaching programs within maritime history;

  -Institutional recognition of maritime history.

In order to fulfill its mission the IMHA has developed a range of activities and resources:

It publishes four volumes of the international, peer-review journal International Journal of Maritime History annually and a series of research monographs entitled Research in Maritime History.

IMHA regularly publishes a newsletter on maritime history regarding upcoming conferences, book releases, scholarships, job-announcements etc. within the field of maritime history. IMHA also co-ordinates the International Maritime Economic History Association Linkedin Group, an internet discussion forum that keeps subscribers posted about events and current issues related to the field.

IMHA organizes an international congress of maritime history every four years. Since 1992 IMEHA has held successful congresses in Liverpool, UK (1992), Amsterdam, the Netherlands (1996), Esbjerg, Denmark (2000), Corfu, Greece (2004), Greenwich, UK (2008), Ghent, Belgium (2012), Perth, Australia (2016) and Porto, Portugal(2020). Several hundred participants have attended each conference.

IMHA also awards prizes to junior researchers in order to promote research within maritime history.

The IMHA welcomes members from all disciplines who share an interest in humankind’s relationship with the sea.