Minju Kwon
Minju Kwon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Chapman University, USA. She specializes in international institutions and gender studies, with a regional focus on Asia. After receiving her Ph.D. in Political Science with a minor in Gender Studies from the University of Notre Dame, she served as a postdoctoral fellow of the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies at Notre Dame.
Jeeye Song is an Invited Professor in Global Korean Studies at Korea University. Her research centers on historical International Relations, with a particular focus on the East Asian international order and the experiences of Korea and Vietnam. She was previously a 2024 Visiting Fellow at the Seoul National University Asia Center and a 2021-2022 Rothman Doctoral Fellow at the University of Florida's Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere.
Co-authors: Chapman University & Korea University
Session
How are animals incorporated into a subjugated class within imperialist projects? With the increasing attention to non-human beings, scholars in various fields, including history and critical animal studies, have examined imperial controls of animals as non-human colonial subjects across different regions and countries (Borkfelt 2010; Trefalt 2013; Miller 2020; Borchetia 2024). However, there has been a limited theorization of the common processes through which empires subjugated animals as a political project, and most of them have focused on Western empires. Filling the gaps in research, this paper examines imperial projects to govern animals in colonial spaces, from the cases of Korea and Taiwan under Japanese imperial rule. Using the concept of the “coloniality of animal governance,” we argue that imperial projects concerning animals were aligned with civilizing missions to strengthen the empire through the governance of non-humans in uncivilized space. By conducting online archival research of official documents and periodical media sources from Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, we find that the imperial Japanese government pursued its material and symbolic power through the four main patterns: (1) presenting the state power for safety protection, (2) fulfilling the needs of economic resources, (3) pursuing hygienic modernization, and (4) enhancing the scientific knowledge. This study contributes to the literature on Global international relations (IR) by theorizing the relation between imperialism and non-human beings and providing cases from a non-Western empire.