Abstract
Evaluating the Russian Krusenstern Expedition and its contribution to ichthyology, this chapter demonstrates the significance of expeditions as the only available means to reach the “contact zones”, where Westerners, despite some challenges, could acquire natural history objects and local knowledge through exchange with the locals. By tracing the surviving fish specimens, archives and drawings, as well as collecting literary source materials in Europe and Japan, this chapter illustrates the whole process of the production of information about Japanese fish by the West in the early nineteenth century, when Japan had an isolationist policy. While participating German natural historians Langsdorff and Tilesius collected these objects, the French scholars Cuvier and Valenciennes practised their examinations to gain knowledge and described the new species from Japan.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to express my appreciation to many people who kindly supported my research. I am particularly grateful to Tetsuo Yoshino and Takao Yamaguchi for all of their support, offering me important source materials and valuable comments based on their broad knowledge of natural history. I would like to extend my gratitude to the following people, who supported me in accessing valuable research materials in museums and libraries, or who kindly provided relevant information for my research: Peter Bartsch, Christa Lamour, Sabine Hackethal and Kerstin Pannhorst (Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions- und Biodiversitätsforschung); Cornelia Junge (Universität Leipzig); Patrice Pruvost, Romain Causse, Ferrara Claude and Zora Gabsi (Department of Ichthyology of the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, Paris), Alice Lemaire and Antoine Monaque (Bibliothèque central du Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, Paris); Marie-Christine Skuncke (Uppsala University); Mikhail Nazarkin (Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg); Marina Loskutova, Anastasia Fedotova and Tatiana Feklova (Institute for the History of Science and Technology, St Petersburg Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences); Olga Fedorova (Central Naval Library, St Petersburg); Mikio Oshima and Alexey Krusenstern. I am also grateful to Tomotoshi Okaichi (Professor Emeritus of Kagawa University) and Kuninao Tada (Kagawa University), the Matsudaira Koueki-kai Foundation and the Kagawa Museum for their generous support. I thank Andy Orosz for revising the text. This work was partly supported by the Sasakawa Scientific Research Grant from the Japan Science Society and by a Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) (22700842 and 25870485) of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan.
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Takigawa, Y. (2016). Japanese Ichthyological Objects and Knowledge Gained in Contact Zones by the Krusenstern Expedition. In: Klemun, M., Spring, U. (eds) Expeditions as Experiments. Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58106-8_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58106-8_4
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