Go-betweens and competitors. The Japanese residents in Southeast Asia at the crossroads between communities (17th century) - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Article Dans Une Revue Asiatische Studien/Etudes Asiatiques Année : 2023

Go-betweens and competitors. The Japanese residents in Southeast Asia at the crossroads between communities (17th century)

Résumé

During the 17th century, the unprecedented opening of Japan to the outside world drew hundreds of Japanese to travel to and settle in Southeast Asia. These Japanese residents, some of whom continued to maintain a strong connection with Japan, acquired a privileged position in their host societies, as merchants, officials, or soldiers. This position enabled them to occupy the central function of go-betweens in the relations that the Southeast Asian states sought to establish with foreign merchants. This paper aims to demonstrate, through a careful analysis of sources and the use of modeling, that the Japanese in Southeast Asia crossed borders in multiple ways. Not only did they move outside the borders of Japan, but through their role as go-betweens they were also at the interface between social, ethnolinguistic, and religious groups. They used this favorable situation to facilitate communication as well as to erect barriers, according to their own interests. Although migrants imported practices from Japan when they settled there, this paper argues that in order to understand the solidity of their settlement and the success they and their children experienced they should be seen as frontier actors rather than Japanese migrants.
Fichier non déposé

Dates et versions

hal-04169173 , version 1 (24-07-2023)

Identifiants

Citer

Pierre-Emmanuel Bachelet. Go-betweens and competitors. The Japanese residents in Southeast Asia at the crossroads between communities (17th century). Asiatische Studien/Etudes Asiatiques, 2023, ⟨10.1515/asia-2022-0035⟩. ⟨hal-04169173⟩
30 Consultations
0 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More