Comparative Study of Travels and Representations(Coordinator: TAKACHIO Hitoshi) This project mainly investigates the discourses of travels which present encounters with the others, decode representations encoded by the others and the meaningful world presented by the others and constitute the various meanings of cultural otherness. In the course of this research, the subject will be extended to contexts which produce discourses on the others, construction of the distance or difference between the self (own culture) and the others, and the evaluation of the representation of the others. Currently there has been considerable progress in Europe and America in the study of travel-books, questioning the premise that the others must be directly represented and in reflecting the inadequacy of considering the basis of representing the others and the discourses on the others themselves. In correlating these studies, the project shall treat the texts of the modern post-renaissance European and American travellers and also the texts of other travellers. Also the various modes of representation of others and related ideas (such as order and justice, orthodoxy, cosmos) shall be taken up as subjects for research. By such comparative studies, it must be made clear that arrangement of the others themselves and of places and times in which the others have been set, have been done by the cultures with ecriture, and that there are the discourses which present the modes of relationship between the culture with ecriture and the others (e.g., ideal, harmonious, illusionary, chaotic, desperate, exclusive). Also these studies will consider the construction of identities in each culture and the universality of culture and even the discourses of modernity. Social Change and International Relations in Modern East Asia(Coordinator: NAKAMI Tatsuo) During the last ten years access to archival sources relating to modern East Asia has become easier, and now historians face the problem of how to systematically collect and digest this huge body of materials. This project focuses on the utilization of archival sources for historical analyzes in studies relating to social change and international relations in East Asia between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. Symposia with guest speakers are held twice a year and monographs and collections of source materials are being published.History of the Non-Han Peoples of South-West China(Coordinator: DANIELS Christian) The history of the non-Han peoples who originally inhabited present-day South-West China is one of gradual incorporation into the Chinese Empire. Increased immigration by Han Chinese and the policies adopted by the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties brought increasingly larger numbers of non-Han peoples under the direct control of the central government. Subsequent loss of autonomy wrought great changes on their indigenous societies, intensified dislocation and in many cases forced migration; the movement of hill tribes to mainland South-East Asia is a better known example. Few studies in the past have attempted to develop analytical tools which integrate methodological and empirical approaches to explain the complexity of this historical process. As a first move in this direction, this project aims to promote general research on the history of this region, which has previously received little attention from historians, first by providing a forum for debate and the exchange of ideas, and second by collecting and processing historical source materials. While emphasizing the need for analysis from the standpoint of the non-Han peoples in order to redress Han Chinese cultural bias, efforts are also being made to create an environment for interdisciplinary explorations by including cultural anthropologists, ethnologists, folklorists as well as historians among the participants.6
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