J-InnovaTech is a European Research Council Starting Grant project run by Aleksandra Kobiljski, hosted by the French National Research Center (CNRS) and based at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris, France. The project seeks to understand the technical culture of Japan's early industry during the pivotal period between 1800 and 1885. The target period roughly covers the last seven decades of the Tokugawa shogunate and the first two decades of the Meiji regime which came to power in 1868. This transition period is not part of the standard narratives of Japanese industrialization despite the array of primary sources and indirect evidence of its importance for Japan's rapid industrialization in the late 19th century. The goal of the J-InnovaTech was to build a team and probe into this key and under-explored period by drawing together disparate and dispersed sources to bear on the question of innovation and their implications for Japan's industrial development.
What is the problem/issue being addressed?
The poor understanding of technical culture of Japan's early industry, meaning the way in which production activity was conceived, organized and networked prior to the so-called "take-off" period of the mid-1880s. Despite macro-economic indicators of the importance of this period, we do not have a nuanced empirically grounded understanding about this period and how precisely did it matter for later rapid industrial development.
To answer these questions, the project is effectively pooling together distinct clusters of historical expertise and approaches - early modern and modern history, economic history and history of technology, and history of entrepreneurship and environment - to bear three connected questions:
1) What were shifts in some of the domestically most important production sectors? Shifting the focus from classical focus on new and symbolically charged technologies (railroads, steel and textile mills), this project seeks to shift attention major shifts in how production was organized in what were industrial sectors critical for daily lives.
How did the size matter? This project challenges traditional distinction between artisanal and industrial character of production by showcasing ways in which artisanal production was in many ways industrial in scale while upon closer inspection industrial production was remarkably artisanal during the period under study. Our goal is to develop a more capacious conceptual framework for understanding how size of a production unite and the way it is networked with other production unites - small or big - matters in human capital building in 19th century Japan.
How did early industrial culture of 19th century Japan perceive and manage environmental risks? What today considered artisanal production and what was seen as industrial production were hardly distinguishable as such in terms of their environmental impact.Contemporary accounts concerning industries as different as salt-production or copper-mining have similar reports of their negative environmental impact.How did environmental load get distributed and how did agriculture and manufacturing coordinate to avoid major social and political disruption?
Why is it important for society?
This project bringing history to bear on our present climate challenges by reminding us that there is more than one ways to think about innovation and industry? The goal is to broaden the conceptualization of innovation as collaborative, collective, and cumulative process. Contrary to the image of innovation as solitary work of a genius, Japan is an example of how actors came together across political divides to seed meaningful change in how industry worked as much for profit as for social benefit. In fact the word for "profit" and the word for "common benefit" could operate interchangeably. Key to innovation was a sustained effort at collaborative problem-solving in which production was constantly balanced against its social and environmental impact. In yes, industry, yes but not at any cost. This approach did not prevent Japan to become a world industrial power and arguably was constitutive of its success.
What are the overall objectives?
J-InnovaTech seeks to contribute to an empirically grounded more nuanced conceptualization of innovation and what counts as innovative. Project aims to take part in current debates about the meaning and stakes of innovation in times of multiple crisis of regional as well as global scope. Using information from our human track record, this project offers a case study of how individuals and groups developed tools to improving their lives without damaging their society and environment. Why does it matter to Europe today? First, it demonstrates that innovation can look very differently and be as impactful. It can consist of highly inventive small-scale adjustments over relatively long periods of trial-and-error that accumulated over time and end up making a great difference in the long run. Second, thinking with history about innovation is a necessary reminder that to be ambitious innovators in a society we need to part ways with the fantasy that the best path forward is to scrap existing and start over from scratch. The records of human past suggests that - a clean slate was rarely a realistic option. Instead, what is visible upon close inspection is that the new works by embedding itself within the old, not by replacing it and starting from scratch.
