Shima as Explorer/Colonizer Having surveyed the area around the city and laying out the grid pattern of its streets, Shima is today widely celebrated in both Saga and Hokkaido as Sapporo’s founder. His influence is still…

This is a two-part blog series   In Sapporo, the capital of the northern prefecture of Hokkaido, a four metre tall statue of Shima Yoshitake (島義勇) looms large over the Hokkaido Jingu Shrine (北海道神宮). A reprieve…

During my dissertation research conducted during the 2016-2017 academic year, I was based at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, some 1,500 kilometres away from my primary research site. My research focuses on the 19th century Japanese colonization…