“Acontecem no Japão coisas notáveis”: percepções de alteridade e territorialidade na ilha de Kyûshû (1603-1639)

Abstract

Within the scope of maritime trade in the Indian and the Pacific Ocean at the end of the 16th century and beginning of the 17th century, Japan is in the period of its history known as reunification. After the period of internal wars, or Sengoku Jidai, in 1603, the Tokugawa house assumed the Shôgunal title, beginning an administration that would last two hundred years. At the beginning of the Tokugawa government, European nations were actively trading with the Japanese. As mediators between these people were the members of the Society of Jesus, a mendicant order that was born with the purpose of spreading Christianity throughout the world. The 16th century, for Japan, was a time of transition from a period of intense conflicts to a time of relative peace, however the first years of the Tokugawa administration were marked by several measures that aimed, among other purposes, to prevent the landlords, or Daimyô, had the opportunity to rebel against the central government again. In thisscenario of changes is Kyûshû, one of the four largest islands in the archipelago, which is located on the south of the archipelago. Kyûshû, due to its privileged geographical position, was the scenario of the greatest part of the interaction between the Japanese and various foreign peoples who were present on Japanese lands. This work aims to analyze the some spaces of interaction between the Japanese and the different groups of foreigners who were present in the archipelago at the beginning of the Tokugawa period, 1603, highlighting Europeans, until the granting of the edict that decreed the closure of Japan's ports in 1639; understanding the concept of Space as a practiced place (CERTAU, 2014), and thinking about this concept combined with that of territoriality understood as a hybrid, never undifferentiated, of concrete and symbolic (HAESBAERT, 2004), and otherness (TODOROV, 2003), to analyze the territorial changes and the various contacts that took place in the land of the rising sun, focusing on the island of Kyûshû, which, due to its specificity, provides us with a better understanding of the analyzed context.