著者

柴田 陽一

出版者

人文地理学会

雑誌

人文地理 (ISSN:00187216)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.58, no.1, pp.1-19, 2006-02

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The purpose of this paper is to examine the ideological establishment of the geopolitics of Saneshige Komaki (1898-1990), who was a Professor of Geography at Kyoto Imperial University, and a well-known advocate of "Japanese Geopolitics" during World War 2, and accordingly a remarkable figure in the history of Japanese geography. Approaching this subject biobibliographically, I focus on the personal background of Komaki. Using his own bibliography, and through an analysis of his written works, I trace the development of his thought. To begin with, I demonstrate the ideological background of Komaki's geopolitics. Komaki had a great antipathy toward Western imperialism. In addition, immigration issues closely related to racial discrimination were his great concern. He held the view that geography in those days had lost its social relevance, and that the nature and culture of each land should be maintained under an indigenous order. Next, I examine the ideological composition of Komaki's geopolitics. His geopolitics began before the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in July 1937. He asserted that "Japanese Geopolitics" was indigenous and one which attaches importance to the autonomy of Japan, after he had criticized the history of Western exploration, conventional geography, and Geopolitik. His geopolitics tried to clarify what was destroyed by Western colonization and had an historico-geographical and irrational character. Lastly, I point out some of the positive and negative aspects of his geopolitics. The social relevance of geography, his criticism of Western colonialism and the issue of positionality in research can be seen the light of Japan at that time. On the other hand, the lack of an attitude to relativize Japan and the subjective/intuitive judgement in the reasoning process were negative aspects. However, the positive and negative are not clearly divided. "Japanese Geopolitics" has suggested important issues in connection with the political nature and the social relevance of geography and geographical knowledge, although it served to justify the aggressive wars of the Japanese Empire.