Beyond frontiers and borderlands: A reexamination of tsushima's/taema-do's geopolitical position in fifteenth century East Asia

Abstract

Situated approximately ninety miles from Fukuoka, and just thirty miles from Busan, the island of Tsushima/Taema-do has been at the crossroad of East Asian geopolitics since the time of the Chosŏn court and the Muromachi/Ashikaga bakufu. In differentiating its position between a maritime “frontier” and a “border(is)land,” this article argues how various historical agents from the island mediate the different hegemonic influences from Korea and Japan since the fifteenth century. I begin by examining Tsushima/Taema-do as a “frontier” where different influences overlapped and coexisted simultaneously. Then, I explore how the assertion of its identity as a “border(is)land” detached from the centralized political institutions empowered the island to negotiate its dealings with the respective political centers. The last section focuses on non-state actors, specifically the local population and the pirate community, in articulating their agency by forms of negotiation and violence. Hence by reconceptualizing the island as a historical agent in its own right, this article highlights the need to consider the geographical and ideological space negotiated by the island during several major historical ruptures in the early modern period as Tsushima carved out its distinctive position in East Asian geopolitics.