Religion, Gender, and Bodies: Women’s Polyvalent Roles and Experiences in the Biopolitics of Taiwan’s Presbyterian Missions

The Presbyterian missions and medical missions in 19th-century Taiwan were successful enterprises that over time developed into the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, which stands today as the largest Christian minority church in this country. Through a Foucauldian biopolitical perspective, this paper analyzes the roles of female missionaries in the management of bodies and the subjective experiences of both foreign and Native women in the missions. Going beyond descriptive narratives and control-versus-agency reductionist frames, the paper points the polyvalent semantics of such roles and experiences. It also explores the complex relations between the women’s biopolitical functions, the PCT’s industrial type of biopolitical apparatus, and the biopolitical regimes of the late Qing dynasty and the Japanese colonial government in the early 20th century. The conclusions remark on the analytical relevance of biopolitical perspectives in the study of gender and body-related phenomena in Christian missions and Christian religions beyond Western societies.

Colonial policy studies in Japan: racial visions of Nan'yo, or the early creation of a global South

This article examines Japanese colonial policy studies (shokumin seisaku gaku) with a particular focus on its relationship with the distinct region of ‘Nan'yo’ (the South Seas). Specifically analysing the works of Takekoshi Yosaburo (1865–1950), Nitobe Inazo (1862–1933) and Yanaihara Tadao (1893–1961), it seeks to uncover the ways in which the exponents of this study area accounted for Nan'yo based on their conceptions of race. It also shows how they inflicted envisaged racial hierarchies on the southern Pacific and how such attempts were related to colonial policy debates behind the practice of Japanese imperialism. Part of the findings point out that Takekoshi's and Nitobe's comparable projections of strict racial hierarchies on the Malays served to justify the southward colonization of the Japanese. Yanaihara's depiction of Nan'yo islanders as radically underdeveloped was tailored to championing Japan's sustained espousal of the League Mandate. The article argues that their accounts of Nan'yo formed part of a transnational knowledge chain about colonial and racial victimization. Like their western counterparts including Gustav Le Bon, Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, Paul S. Reinsch and J. A. Hobson, they built purported racial pyramids with the tropical areas at their bottom, the bulk of which correspond to today's global South. They have been accomplices in this colonial present.

Interpretation of Construction Procedure and Physicochemical Characteristics for Soil Layers from Sowangneung (Small Royal Tomb) of Ssangneung (Twin Tombs) in Iksan, Korea

The Iksan Ssangneung (twin tombs), a pair of tombs comprising the Daewangneung (large royal tomb) and the Sowangneung (small royal tomb), were constructed in the typical style of stone tunnel and chamber tombs in the Baekje Kingdom during the Sabi period (538 to 660 AD) of ancient Korea. Soil layers exposed during excavation of Sowangneung in a trench east of the tomb are: the bottommost layer, the ground level layer, the Panchuk (rammed earth) layer of the Baekje, the layer created by a grave robbery, and soil recovered during the Japanese colonial period. Soil samples were obtained by segmenting an easy stratigraphic horizon into sub categorized soil layers, and their material properties were analyzed; they are composed mainly of sandy loam based on the particle size distributions. In the site foundation, loamy sand is packed in the bottommost layer, and sandy loam with high sand and silty sand fills most of the overlying layer. The central and topmost portion of the Baekje layer is composed of loam with high clay content. All soil layers show geochemical behaviors similar to those of the bottommost layer. X-ray diffraction analysis verified kaolinite in all layers, also observed in soil layers displaying high crystallinity. Kaolinite and halloysite were identified by scanning electron microscopy. Thus, we conclude that the Baekje layer of the Sowangneung is composed of sandy loam containing kaolin procured from near the site. An impermeable middle to upper layer was created using viscous loam. The top of the tomb was closed tightly.

Modern Historical and Cultural Values of Volunteer Fire Brigade: Sulsan Volunteer Fire Brigade in Impi-myeon, Gunsan-si, Jeollabuk-do

Data investigations and research on the history of firefighting were conducted considering a recent fire museum construction plan. To devise a plan to develop a volunteer fire brigade (the basis of firefighting) in a situation in which most of the real data have been lost or discarded and only some firefighting vehicles and suppression equipment remain, a site visit and relic survey were conducted at the Sulsan Volunteer Fire brigade site in Impi-myeon in Gunsan-si, Jeollabuk-do. It was found that fire wells, manual pumps used since the Japanese colonial period, volunteer fire brigade buildings, and a fire watchtower installed in the 1960s remain. Based on the results and considering the historical and cultural values of the Sulsan Volunteer Fire brigade in Impi-myeon at that time, this study emphasized the importance of fire history and culture, the need to designate and preserve such sites as registered cultural properties, and the new role of the volunteer fire brigade.