Paper short abstract:

A look at ways in which Japan's so-called 'copying' of European technology and other material influences have been adapted and innovated to strike back and relocate the distribution of power. Examples are drawn from religion, healing, food and arts, ultimately to focus on ideas of cultural display.

Paper long abstract:

This proposal is to present a paper about some of the ways in which Japan has "struck back" since the huge influx of European influence which opened up a relatively closed country in the middle of the 19th century through to the presently popular Japanese entertainment systems sweeping through Europe. By tracing a few cases through time, the plan is to discuss the exchange of ideas that underpinned some material manifestations of apparent "copying" that eventually became improvement and innovation, startling Europeans into recognising a shift in power and knowledge that took them by surprise. It will address some examples of divergent ideas that underpin notions of borrowing and replicating in Japan and Europe, and propose ways in which Japan is contributing to and perhaps modifying so-called global knowledge -- as manifest in several other places -- by instigating shifts in practices that may have started out in Europe. Examples could be drawn from all of the conveners' proposed themes of religion, healing, food, arts and techniques of the body, but an eventual focus will be likely to draw most on the author's recent interest in cultural display.