Mutual Transformation of Colonial and Imperial Botanizing? The Intimate yet Remote Collaboration in Colonial Korea

Abstract

Argument Mutuality in "contact zones" has been emphasized in cross-cultural knowledge interaction in re-evaluating power dynamics between centers and peripheries and in showing the hybridity of modern science. This paper proposes an analytical pause on this attempt to better invalidate centers by paying serious attention to the limits of mutuality in transcultural knowledge interaction imposed by asymmetries of power. An unusually reciprocal interaction between a Japanese forester, Ishidoya Tsutomu (1891-1958), at the colonial forestry department, and his Korean subordinate Chung Tyaihyon (1883-1971) is chosen to highlight an inescapable asymmetry induced by the imperial power structure. Ishidoya, positioning himself as a settler expert, as opposed to a scientist in Tokyo, pursued localized knowledge in growing interaction with Chung, resulting in Ishidoya's career change as a herbalist focusing on traditional medicine and Chung's leadership in Korean-only botanizing. However, their mutual transformations, limited by asymmetric constraints on their choices, did not unsettle the imperial power structure or the centrality of centers.

Introduction. Écrire l’histoire des savoirs dans les empires en Asie

“…Or, comme l'historienne Jung Lee l'a bien souligné, il n'existe pas de pleine réciprocité entre savants dans les situations de rencontre ou d'échange asymétrique. Dans la mesure où les intermédiaires indigènes sont le plus souvent étudiés pour leurs rapports aux colonisateurs, Jung Lee estime qu'il est nécessaire d'explorer davantage l'asymétrie de ces rapports -pour elle-même, dans le statut des agents comme dans celui des savoirs 34 . Les études cherchent à mieux saisir le rôle des scribes, des comptables, des administrateurs ou des différents acteurs impliqués dans la production et la conservation des savoirs 35 .…”

Taibai Materia Medica: Unofficial ‘Herb Physicians’ in North Western China

“…Confucian scholars' disregard and rare interaction with local rural matters, even in the early twentieth century (Harrison, 2005), underline the marginalised status of rural suppliers in global capitalism today (Tsing, 2015). Generally, establishing the genre of a regional materia medica is hard, even for a nation-state like Korea (Lee, 2016;Suh, 2017).…”

The Pitfalls of Monopoly Production and the Ginseng Derivatives Market in Colonial Korea, 1910–1945

“…Sugihara viewed research into traditional Korean medicine as a part of a broader inquiry into East Asian medicine that would legitimate the Japanese empire by allowing it become a disseminator of a modern East Asian culture. 68 The majority of "ginseng advocate." 74 When the Chosȏn Koryȏ insam cheje 朝鮮高麗人蔘製劑 company in the late colonial period advertised a product called "Sȏllyȏsam" 鮮麗蔘, it prominently states in its advertisement that Keijō Imperial University professor Sugihara Noriyuki developed its patented method for extracting ginseng ingredients.…”