Cultural Mediation in Edo Japan: Rangaku as initiator of the process of questioning the domestic discourse in sakoku Japan

Abstract

During the Edo period the Tokugawa shogunate enforced the sakoku policy, by which foreign contacts were limited and almost monopolized by the Dutch East India Company. Such decision changed radically the history of Japan and we can, as argued in this research, still witness its legacy. This environment allowed Japan to gain knowledge of the Western world, filtered by the Dutch, as we see the rise of the rangaku scholarship. European science and medicine books reached Japan in their Dutch translation, thus calling for some of the members of the educated bourgeoisie to engage in the study of the language of the Low Lands. A new debate was started in Japan with regards to the introduction of those Western elements in the pre-existing traditions based on native philosophies and Chinese wisdom. These interactions allowed us to better understand how both countries envisioned themselves and the other and the processes by which, eventually, Japan continued its path towards today's alleged Westernization. It is believed that, as long as an element perceived as foreign is not introduced in the context of the traditional discourse the universality of one's own customs and beliefs never gets to be questioned. Such questioning, this research argues, had the chance to occur in Japan starting from the contacts with the West through the Dutch mediation in the 17th century. The conversation has been extensively hindered by the linguistic and societal distance between the two countries and led to numerous incomprehension. This analysis will elevate such problematic instances of miscommunication in order to understand the peculiarities of each culture and their perception of the other, investigating the reasons why a smooth dialogue could not have possibly happened.