"Bite, Bite against the Iron Cage": The Ambivalent Dreamscape of Zoos in Colonial Seoul and Taipei. Issue 2 (May 2020)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- "Bite, Bite against the Iron Cage": The Ambivalent Dreamscape of Zoos in Colonial Seoul and Taipei. Issue 2 (May 2020)
- Main Title:
- "Bite, Bite against the Iron Cage": The Ambivalent Dreamscape of Zoos in Colonial Seoul and Taipei
- Authors:
- Seeley, Joseph
Skabelund, Aaron - Abstract:
- Abstract : This article examines the zoological gardens established by Japanese imperialists in colonial Seoul (1908) and Taipei (1914). Drawing on multilingual sources, it argues that zoos explicitly exposed the unequal interethnic and interspecies hierarchies that undergirded the colonial project. The colonial zoo was an ambivalent "dreamscape": a carefully constructed landscape of iron cages and manicured pathways wherein colonizers' dreams of ordering the natural world and colonized populations existed in uneasy tension with the actual experiences of zoo visitors and encaged zoo animals. Intellectuals sometimes criticized zoo excesses or identified the bondage of caged animals with the colonized experience. Yet these zoos also enjoyed immense popularity as Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese visitors alike participated in the physical and discursive subjugation of zoo animals. Sensitivity to these contradictions, this essay contends, is essential for understanding both the broader significance of these institutions and their contested legacies today.
- Is Part Of:
- Journal of Asian studies. Volume 79:Issue 2(2020)
- Journal:
- Journal of Asian studies
- Issue:
- Volume 79:Issue 2(2020)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 79, Issue 2 (2020)
- Year:
- 2020
- Volume:
- 79
- Issue:
- 2
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2020-0079-0002-0000
- Page Start:
- 429
- Page End:
- 454
- Publication Date:
- 2020-05
- Subjects:
- animal history, -- colonial education, -- interspecies hierarchy, -- Japanese imperialism, -- Korea, -- postcolonial legacies, -- resistance, -- Taiwan, -- World War II, -- zoos
East Asia -- Periodicals
950.05 - Journal URLs:
- http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=JAS&bVolume=y ↗
http://journals.cambridge.org/jid_JAS ↗
http://www.jstor.org/journals/00219118.html ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1017/S0021911819001165 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0021-9118
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store
- Ingest File:
- 14963.xml