Earthquake Relief and the Transfer of Scientific Knowledge in the Asia-Pacific Region of the 1920s - Chinese, Japanese and U.S. Perspectives

1920年12月16日，当代历史上最具破坏性的地震之一震撼了中国西北部。三年后的1923年9月1日，日本的大都市大都会东京基本上被摧毁。这两次灾难都使东亚社会承受了极大的负担。与此同时，它们也成为新发展的科学地震学的研究对象，并成为将地方和国际倡议联系在一起的新型复杂救灾活动的场合。与这些自然灾害有关的人道主义承诺和科学交流都是在新出现的亚太互动领域内进行的。除了地缘政治和政府之间的权力关系，本项目还研究了1918年至1931/32年日本入侵满洲期间太平洋地区的非政府相互依存关系。20世纪20年代的特点是跨国灾害管理和中国，日本和美国之间前所未有的科学交流。虽然这种文化-科学的跨国主义未能阻止进一步的战争，但它确实建立了新的联系，这些联系可能在世纪后期重新连接起来。通过将该项目的宗旨和目标与环境灾害研究工具结合起来，该项目将宏观层面的跨界关系与地震的地方层面及其对受灾社会的影响联系起来。整个项目分为三个互补的项目，使视角多样化到中国，日本和美国的经验，因为他们都连接和相互关联的慈善事业，科学和政治。在复原力方法的帮助下，这些区域在克服灾害方面的差异和共同之处都将得到比较揭示。整个项目的目标是更好地了解中国和日本的灾难文化，以及从亚太文化区域跨国形成的角度来看，它们与美国作为一个新兴的太平洋演员的关系。

On December 16, 1920, one of the most devastating earthquakes in contemporary history shook northwestern China. Three years later on September 1, 1923, the Japanese metropolis Tokyo was largely destroyed. Both catastrophes exposed the East Asian societies to extreme burdens. At the same time they became subjects of the newly developing scientific seismology and occasions for disaster relief of a new type of complexity which connected local and international initiatives. Both the humanitarian commitments and the scientific communication related to these natural catastrophes took place in the newly emerging Asian-Pacific sphere of interaction. Beyond geopolitics and the power relationships between governments, this project examines the non-governmental interdependency in this Pacific space in the period between 1918 until the Japanese invasion of Manchuria from 1931/32. The 1920s were characterized by transnational disaster management and unprecedented scientific exchange between Chinese, Japanese and Americans. While this cultural-scientific transnationalism failed to prevent further wars, it did establish new contacts, which could be reconnected in the late twentieth century. Through the integration of the aims of this project and objectives together with the tools of environmental disaster research, this project connects the macro-level of cross-border relationships with the local dimensions of the earthquakes and their impact on the affected societies. The division of the complete project into three complimentary projects enables a diversification of perspectives into Chinese, Japanese, and American experiences as they are both connected and interconnected to philanthropy, science, and politics. With the help of the resilience approach both the differences and commonalities between these regions in their overcoming of disaster will be unraveled comparatively. The goal of the overall project is to better understand cultures of catastrophe in both China and Japan, and their relationship to the United States as an emerging Pacific actor from the perspective of the transnational formation of the Asian-Pacific cultural region.