This project explores the possibilities and challenges of adopting a multispecies perspective in humanities research while making a case for pursuing integrated Japanese studies as a field that unites humanities and scientific research. It does so by analyzing the autonomy and role of nonhuman organisms in shaping the varying human experiences in Japanese history, society, and culture. As the principal investigator, Huang traces the political mobilization of plant life from Edo-period texts on utilizing local flora for famine relief to the everyday response to drug shortages in imperial Japan, asking how various plants grew to occupy the positions of “medicinal herbs,” “vegetables,” and “weeds” while reinforcing and subverting that order of value. Ochi, the project’s co-investigator, will conduct a multispecies anthropological study of memorials and commemorative practices for experimental plants, animals, and human specimens in Japan. By examining how care for research subjects of other species is socially and institutionally expressed and legitimized, this project will illuminate the ethical indebtedness and affective relationships that accompany the human use of other species. In doing so, it aims to reconsider modes of coexistence and forms of responsibility within scientific research.
Extending their interest in multispecies to a commitment to intellectual diversity, the investigators seek as well to develop a model for fostering multidisciplinary collaboration. In addition to utilizing the Tohoku University Digital Archives, the project combines the insights of history and anthropology with the expertise of research partners from medical and pharmaceutical sciences to pivot towards a more inclusive and integrated understanding about knowledge and its production regarding the past, present, and future of multispecies coexistence.
