ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Fragile Modernity? Utility Poles in the Modern Landscapes of East Asia

• In Event: The Environmental Lives of Things: Science and Technology, Environmental History, and Material Culture

English Abstract

Paying attention to Gregory Clancey’s argument that brick houses—once emblematic of “Western robustness” within Japan’s modernization program—proved fragile in the face of seismic events, this presentation conducts a historical examination of such a “fragile modernity” by focusing on utility poles. As Wolfgang Schivelbusch has illustrated, utility poles, which extended alongside railway networks, conspicuously symbolized modern technological civilization; moreover, scholars such as Bruce Hunt and Daniel Headrick have emphasized that telegraph networks operated as the neural infrastructure of imperialism. In a similar vein, since the nineteenth century utility poles have shaped the landscapes of imperial modernity in East Asia, as noted in the work of Kim Yeon-hee. Conversely, when attention is directed to discourses in Japan, critical voices emerge that characterize utility poles—despite their role in sustaining modern technological systems—as “backward,” invoking concerns about their vulnerability to disasters, their obstruction of traffic, and their deleterious effects on urban aesthetics. The limitations of utility poles may also be considered in relation to the inability of technological artifacts fully to control nature. Japanese ornithologist Mikami Osamu suggests that networks of poles and wires function as artificial trees or forests for urban-dwelling birds; the relationships between utility poles and animals can likewise be examined from the perspective of nonhuman actors emphasized by scholars such as Bruno Latour.

Author

• Boumsoung Kim, Tokyo University of Science