| Summary: | <p>Between the years 1609 and 1641, merchants of the English and Dutch East India Companies (EIC and VOC) lived and worked in the port city of Hirado in Tokugawa Japan. The arrival of these companies marks the first time that western Europeans had encountered Japan following the formation of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1603. Lacking the resources and training of royal embassies, and neither desirous nor capable of military intervention, the English and Dutch merchants were required to pursue strategies of social integration in Japan, in order to develop the network of social relations needed for successful trade.</p>
<p>This dissertation examines the mechanisms by which these merchants were able to integrate with the Japanese they encountered during their time at Hirado. It argues that strangership – the ambivalent and potentially hostile relationship between estranged parties – was a significant threat to trade. By locating points of cross-cultural commensurability between their disparate societies, the European merchants were able to develop trust with the local Japanese and overcome, in large part, the challenge of strangership. It suggests that this process was facilitated by the fact that all three countries were being shaped in broadly similar ways by shared ‘early modern’ forces.</p>
<p>Drawing on written and visual sources from the EIC and VOC factories at Hirado, this study examines the ways in which the European merchants were able to develop cross-cultural commensurability in five central aspects of the Euro-Japanese relationship: the formation of distinct cultural identities, the use of entertainment and socialising as a means of constituting social networks, the impact of space on social relations, the use of formal and informal gift exchanges as a social mediator, and the role of violence in resolving conflicts of honour and status.</p>
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