Places and affects in the “perfect garden”: Miyabe Kingo and the making of a botanist in Hokkaido, 1860–89

This paper examines the importance of places and affects in the formative years of Japanese botanist Miyabe Kingo (1860–1951) and the transformation of Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan, into a “Perfect Garden.” It begins by showing how the Meiji government and American advisors invoked the climatic similarities between Hokkaido and Northeastern America in the colonization of the island and the establishment of the Sapporo Agricultural College (SAC). William S. Clark (1826–86), the first president of the SAC, brought a distinct combination of New Botany and Christianity to the first cohort of students, who then influenced Miyabe in the second cohort. Although Clark’s teaching situated evolutionary theory and Christian faith in perfect harmony, with his departure, the students were left to navigate their professional and religious identities. Miyabe’s passion for botany was therefore intertwined not only with the state’s colonial project but repeated emotional and spiritual struggles. This paper aims to approach the role places and affects played in the making of a botanist when the professionalization of the field had just begun and to elucidate the mutual influences between identity formation and place-making.