Between the familiar and the strange : integrating the Americas in early modern Chinese world geography

Vidal Kunstmann, José Miguel (author)

This paper examines how early modern Chinese literati integrated Jesuit knowledge of the Americas through a dynamic process of cultural negotiation, challenging reduc­tive narratives of passive reception or unilateral European diffusion. Beginning in the late 16th century, amid growing global interconnectedness and a vibrant Chinese print culture, Jesuit missionaries, together with Chinese collaborators, developed a strategic approach centred on printed works, including world maps and geographical treatises. The paper first argues that they consciously “encoded” foreign knowledge by appro­priating Chinese terminology, formats, and cosmological frameworks, adapting their descriptions of the Americas to resonate with local conceptions of the strange, the marvellous, and the exotic. Conversely, Chinese scholars did not merely adopt or reject this material, but instead they actively “decoded” and reinterpreted it within their own intellectual horizons. It is further argued that this process led to the assimilation of the Americas into established categories of the unknown and the extraordinary, often in as­sociation with distant and unfamiliar lands, producing complex forms of domestication and integration. While official compilations preserved Jesuit accounts primarily for their heuristic value as divergent observations of the world, privately authored histori­cal-geographical texts and maps reimagined and reframed knowledge about the Amer­icas through creative engagements with traditional Chinese geographic and historical imaginaries. By foregrounding the interpretative agency of Chinese scholars, this study highlights a multipolar model of knowledge exchange, driven not by linear diffusion, but by cultural translation, selective appropriation and intellectual trends within early modern Chinese geographic and historical discipline.

• Language: English
• Keywords: Sino-Jesuit encounter, cultural negotiation, geographical imagination, cartography, strange
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 107-142
• Numbering: Vol. 14, no. 2
• ISSN on article: 2232-5131
• DOI: 10.4312/as.2026.14.2.107-142
• Publication date in RUL: 05.11.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Asian studies = Azijske študije
• Publisher: Založba Univerze v Ljubljani
• ISSN: 2232-5131
• COBISS.SI-ID: 265206272

Licences

• License: CC BY-SA 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
• Description: This Creative Commons license is very similar to the regular Attribution license, but requires the release of all derivative works under this same license.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Med znanim in tujim : vključevanje Amerik v zgodnjo sodobno kitajsko sve­tovno geografijo

Abstract

Članek preučuje, kako so zgodnji sodobni kitajski literati integrirali jezuitsko znanje o Amerikah v dinamičnem procesu kulturnih pogajanj, pri čemer so izpodbijali redukcio­nistične pripovedi o pasivnem sprejemanju ali enostranski evropski difuziji. Konec 16. stoletja so jezuitski misijonarji sredi vse večje globalne povezanosti in živahne kitajske kulture tiska skupaj s kitajskimi sodelavci razvili strateški pristop, osredotočen na ti­skana dela, vključno s svetovnimi zemljevidi in geografskimi razpravami. Članek sprva izpostavi, da so jezuiti zavestno »kodirali« tuje znanje s prisvajanjem kitajske termino­logije, formatov in kozmoloških okvirov ter prilagodili svoje opise obeh Amerik lokal­nim predstavam o nenavadnem, čudovitem in eksotičnem; nato pa poudari, da kitajski učenjaki tega gradiva niso zgolj sprejeli ali zavrnili, temveč so ga aktivno »dekodirali« in na novo interpretirali znotraj svojih intelektualnih obzorij. Nadalje trdi, da je ta proces privedel do asimilacije obeh Amerik v uveljavljene kategorije neznanega in izjemnega, pogosto v povezavi z oddaljenimi ter neznanimi deželami, kar je ustvarilo kompleksne oblike udomačitve in integracije. Medtem ko so uradne zbirke ohranile jezuitske zapise predvsem zaradi njihove hevristične vrednosti kot različnih opazovanj sveta, so zasebno napisani zgodovinsko-geografski teksti in zemljevidi na novo zasnovali ter preoblikovali znanje o Amerikah s pomočjo ustvarjalnih povezav s tradicionalnimi kitajskimi geograf­skimi in zgodovinskimi predstavami. S poudarjanjem interpretativne dejavnosti kitajskih učenjakov ta študija izpostavlja večpolarni model izmenjave znanja, ki ga ne poganja linearna difuzija, temveč kulturno prevajanje, selektivna apropriacija ter intelektualni trendi znotraj zgodnje moderne kitajske geografske in zgodovinske discipline.

• Keywords: kitajsko-jezuitsko srečanje, kulturno pogajanje, geografsko predstavljanje, kartografija, nenavadno