Article ID: CBB060371006

Becoming Visible: Insects and Infrastructures in Colonial Taiwan (2024)

unapi

Systematic entomology as the study and ordering of insect biodiversity is a material-based practice that relies on insect bodies as a resource. Especially large amounts of insect specimens were collected and traded globally in the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century, often relying on colonial infrastructures. Taking colonial-era Taiwan as a case study, this paper asks under which circumstances specific places became collecting sites. It takes a series of articles on the insect fauna of the island as a point of departure, titled H. Sauter’s Formosa-Ausbeute after the German naturalist who sent the specimens around the world in the early twentieth century. It explores how collecting specimens was entangled with colonial infrastructure projects, insect policies, and forest-based industries. After Taiwan became a Japanese colony in 1895, newly constructed railways, including push car lines and logging trains, gave naturalists access to inner frontiers. Conversely, insects moved into the spotlight by disrupting these same infrastructures. A rush into the mountains was brought on by the island’s abundance in old growth forests, as evergreen trees such as camphor laurels became valuable export resources. The location of insect collecting sites was determined not just by ecological factors but by forest-based industries and colonial policies as well. As ancient trees were felled and aboriginal peoples violently displaced, insect collectors followed colonial infrastructures into the mountains, resulting in what a German entomologist called the “mass fabrication” of articles about Taiwan’s insect fauna.

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Article Tahani Nadim; Mareike Vennen; Ina Heumann; Filippo Bertoni (2024) Logistical Natures: Trade, Traffics, and Transformations in Natural History Collecting. Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (pp. 125-134). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB060371006/

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Authors & Contributors
Ackery, Phil
Amouroux, Rémy
Brown, Georgina V.
Casado de Otaola, Santos
Castonguay, Stéphane
Few, Martha
Journals
Archives of Natural History
Canadian Historical Review
East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal
Gesnerus
Historia Scientiarum: International Journal of the History of Science Society of Japan
Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences
Publishers
Association for Asian Studies
Harvard University Asia Center
Univ. Chicago Press
University of Alabama Press
University of California Press
NTU Press
Concepts
Colonialism
Entomology
Insects
Collectors and collecting
Natural history
Japan, colonies
People
Caradja, Aristed
Delves Broughton, L. R.
Freud, Sigmund
Hunter, William
Martínez de la Escalera y Pérez de Rozas, Fernando
Martínez de la Escalera y Pérez de Rozas, Manuel
Time Periods
20th century, early
19th century
18th century
16th century
17th century
20th century
Places
Taiwan
Korea
Canada
Japan
Africa
Brazil
Institutions
Taihoku Teikoku Daigaku
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