Address

Universität Duisburg-Essen
Historisches Institut
Universitätsstraße 2
45117 Essen

Room R12 V01 D11

Phone

0201 183-4903

E-Mail

mariko.jacoby@uni-due.de

Research Interests

History of early modern and modern Japan (17^th – 20^th century)
Environmental History
History of Science, History of Knowledge
Global History
Urban History
Media History

Research Project: Compromise and Commons: Regulating Resource Conflicts in Early Modern Japan

The project analyses the use of compromise in legal settlements (naisai) for mitigating resource conflicts in Japan during the Edo period (1603–1868). By comparing resource conflicts from the three areas that were governed as commons (mountains, rivers and channels, lakes and coastal waters), the entanglements between resources, social structures and legal practices are revealed.

Differing from arable land, which was subject to taxation and thus allocated to landowners and taxpayer entities, the access to mountains, rivers, and the ocean was complex in early modern Japan. They were mostly governed as villages commons and were pervaded by a web of layered rights to the different kinds of resources, which also included feudal lords, temples and shrines, and the Shogunate. To mitigate resource conflicts, legal settlements were employed to balance and regulate the access to resources, mainly based on reaching compromises.

The main objective of this project is to analyse the relationship between the materiality of the resources, the social structures, and the use of compromise in early modern Japanese legal settlements. Naisai have been mostly examined from a legal history perspective. Although resource conflicts have been acknowledged as a main field of litigation, the effects of the materiality on social organization and practices remain unclear. By comparing different resource assemblages and their conflict settlement mechanisms, this project not only adds to the understanding of resource governance in early modern Japan, but also has relevance for contemporary debates on impending resource conflicts in a world with complex resource networks.

Qualifications

• Since 3/2022 Postdoctoral researcher “Cultures of compromise”, University of Duisburg-Essen
• 2021 PhD in Modern and Contemporary History, University of Freiburg
• 2021 Research Associate and Lecturer, Chair of East Asian History, University of Freiburg
• 2019 Guest Research Scholar, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, University of Tokyo
• 2017-2019 Predoctoral Fellow, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin
• 2015-2017 Research Student, Graduate School for Human Sciences, University of Osaka
• 2015 Research Fellow, Leibniz Programme “Global Processes”, University of Constance
• 2014-2015 Research Associate and Lecturer, Chair of East Asian History, University of Freiburg
• 2013 M.A. in Modern and Contemporary History, Geology, Latin

Publications

Articles

“Tsunami Research and Preparedness in the Pacific in the 20^th Century.” In: Oceanic Japan, edited by Ian J. Miller, Nadin Heé, Stefan Hübner, and Bill Tsutsui. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, forthcoming 2023.

“The Development of Disaster Prints and Publications in Japan, 1663-1923.” In: Dealing with Disasters from Early Modern to Modern Times: Cultural Responses to Catastrophes, edited by Lotte Jensen and Hanneke van Asperen. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023.

“Fireproofing the Japanese City against Disasters and Total War, 1923-1945.” In: The Making of the 20th Century City: Towards a Transnational Urban History of Japan and Europe, edited by Rainer Liedtke, Takahito Mori, and Katja Schmidtpott. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2023.

“Learning from the Earthquake Nation: Japanese Science Diplomacy in the 20th Century.” Journal of Contemporary History 56, no. 3 (2021): 485-501.

“The Tennessee River Authority goes Japan: A river’s way into the Anthropocene.” Anthropocene Curriculum (October 12, 2019), https://www.anthropocene-curriculum.org/contribution/the-tennessee-valley-authority-goes-japan-a-rivers-way-into-the-anthropocene. 

“Taiheiyō ni okeru kokusaiteki na tsunami bōsai taisei no seiritsu [The Establishment of an International Tsunami Prevention System in the Pacific].” Shigaku Zasshi 127, no. 6 (2018): 64-82.

“Die Katastrophe als Medienereignis: Die Darstellungen von Erdbebenkatastrophen in japanischen „Katastrophenpublikationen“ von 1662-1923 [The disaster as media event: The representation of earthquake disasters in Japanese “disaster publications” in 1662-1923].” In 2. Forum für literaturwissenschaftliche Japanforschung. Arbeitspapiere. 16. und 17. Mai 2014, edited by Carolin Fleischer and Sabine Schenk, https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/22470  (published January 28, 2015): 11-17.

Jacoby, Julia Mariko. “Rezension zu Linke, Konrad: Das Tulare Assembly Center. Alltag in einem Lager für Japanoamerikaner im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Trier 2014.” H-Soz-Kult (October 2, 2015), www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/rezbuecher-23471.

Roundtable

Onaga, Lisa et al. “Sources of Disaster. A Roundtable Discussion on New Epistemic Perspectives in Post-3.11.” In: East Asian Science, Technology and Society. An International Journal, 15,4 (2021), S. 482-496.

Translations

Saaler, Sven, and Christian W. Spang. “Doitsu Tōyōbunka Kenkyūkai (OAG) no higashi ajia kenkyū [Research on East Asia by the German Society for Natural and Ethnological Studies of East Asia (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens, OAG)].” Translated by Mariko Jacoby. In: Doitsu to higashi ajia 1890-1945 [Germany and East Asia 1890-1945]. Edited by Nobuo Tajima and Akira Kudo. Tokyo: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai, 2017: 699-731.

Saaler, Sven, and Christian W. Spang. “Daiichiji sekaitaisengo no nichidoku kankei ni okeru Doitsu Tōyōbunka Kenkyūkai (OAG) no yakuwari [The role of the German Society for Natural and Ethnological Studies of East Asia (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens, OAG) for German-Japanese relations after the First World War].” Translated by Mariko Jacoby. In: 1920 nendai no nihon to kokusai kankei. Konton wo koete „atarashii chitsujo“ e [Japan’s international relations in the 1920s. Overcoming the confusion towards a “new order”]. Edited by Yoneyuki Sugita. Yokohama: Shunpūsha, 2011: 87-122.