Asian Studies Theses and Dissertations

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Re-Centering the Northern Periphery: International Trade and Regional Autonomy in the "Hiraizumi Century"
(University of Oregon, 2021-09-13) Coyle, MacKenzie; Goble, Andrew
This thesis examines the role of international trade in building the Ōshū Fujiwara’s autonomous Hiraizumi polity, and ultimately critiques the idea of “center-periphery” binaries in Japanese history. Following the introduction, which prefaces the under-representation of the Ōshū Fujiwara and Tōhoku in scholarship, Chapters Two and Three detail the construction of the northern periphery in the Heian imagination, as well as the rise of the Ōshū Fujiwara and their autonomous power during the “Hiraizumi Century” (1087-1189). Chapters Four and Five build upon these foundations, and investigate the family’s involvement with Chinese and North Asian trade respectively. These chapters argue that, by acquiring symbolic foreign goods and by dominating key trade commodities, networks, and ports, the Ōshū Fujiwara not only established themselves as a politically and culturally autonomous entity, but also relocated themselves from the “periphery” of Heian society, to the “center” of Japanese and global historical developments.