Networks of Japanese Fertilizer in Asia

• In Event: Network and Actions of Science in Modern Asia

Abstract

My paper examines how the networks of chemical fertilizer under the Japanese Empire were transfigured after 1945 in Cold-War Asia. By the network of fertilizer, I mean a network of science, technology, and resources that enable the fertilizer industry to operate and stay profitable, including: chemical research laboratories; the multipurpose dams and power stations; social scientists that collected agricultural and economic statistics; technocrats in economic planning agencies; corporations that built dams, factories, and fertilizers; and transportation systems that moved materials and products around. My goal for this presentation is to map the networks based on data I collect from archives and visualize them, using digital humanities tools (most likely using Gephi). Although such history is yet to be written, my hypothesis is that the colonial fertilizer network did not just dissipate or go back to Japan after the collapse of the empire but moved to Southeast Asia via technical aid projects in the 1950s and 60s. Rather than telling the conventional story of what happens to chemical companies and fertilizer factories, my attempt to visualize the shifting networks of Japanese chemical fertilizer aims to demonstrate the highly complex and much wider picture of the infrastructure of the industry and its place in the Japanese Empire as well as Cold-War Asia.

Author

• Hirom Mizuno, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities