Manchukuo: Imperium in Imperio [Ryan]

Map Link

https://harvard-cga.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=b5a90cba070447adbc436b9ee8598a88&edit#

User Notes

Welcome to Manchukuo, Japan's empire within an empire! To navigate the stormy map simply scroll through and immerse yourself in the narrative.

The historical map from which I extracted the railways layer advances a sense of connective imperial space which links the directly governed province of Korea to the Manchukuo puppet state in support of a macro narrative.

The map from which I extracted the Chien Tao region, notable for its high concentration of ethnic Koreans, advances a view of empire which promoted the settlement of the Manchurian interior by Japanese subjects in support of a micro spatial narrative.

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Both layers shown together advances an image of Japnese imperial space which indicates connectivity but also highlights logicality of adjacent spillover. This presents a more nuanced vision of Japanese imperial influence which indicates a possible dialectic between infrastructural connectivity, immigration policy, and the importance of proximity.

Statement of Significance

The concept of what constitutes an “empire” is richly varied and nuanced, and yet not particularly well defined. Indeed empire is a term which is used quite loosely in contemporary contexts. One might boldly argue, in fact, that there are empires which lack emperors (an american economic empire?) while some emperors seem to lack empires of a traditional understanding (Mark Zuckerberg?). Central to a meaningful characterization of any empire, however, is space as a unit of analysis.

My project focuses specifically on an exploration of the unique brand of Japanese Imperialism which took root in Manchuria in the 1930’s. The 1930’s marked the rise of a new and aggressive incarnation of Japanese militarism which sought to reshape concepts of empire both domestically and by way of imperial expansion. My “map,” which in its totality includes both an interactive map in ArcGIS Online and a set of complementary historical maps and media depicted in the form of a “story map” helps to address two spatial questions, one micro and one macro, which were central to this redefinition of empire. The micro question pits a capitalist driven model of empire anchored in the port city Dairen against a militarist model of empire defined by development of the continental interior. The macro question deals more broadly with the relationship of Manchuria and Manchukuo in its totality to the larger Japanese empire of the 1930’s.

The significance of the mapping process, necessarily emphasized over the final map itself, has been multifaceted. My initial exploration of of groupings of historical maps allowed me to distil a seemingly unmanageable amount of spatially driven historical questions into the two encompassing questions delineated above. The subsequent digitization of features and their employment in Arc GIS Online elucidated both a new historical perspective, and a realization more in line with the “meta questions” outlined in our project description. I learned that, historically, these two questions (despite the tendencies of narrative history) cannot exist in isolation of one another. The internal imperium necessarily interacts within the greater imperio in an inextricably dialectic fashion. Furthermore, the mapping process has shown that sometimes more can be learned from understanding how different questions interact and fit together than can be learned from the search for their “answers.” The goal of my project is to effectively illustrate these points.