Abstract Japanese overseas development assistance intersected with sericulture in Southeast Asia especially during the 1970s and 1980s. Piecing together disparate entomological engagements as reported by Japan International Cooperation Agency and its precursor shows how Japanese developmentalists viewed silk production as a critical strategy for engaging with emergent national economies and cultivating potential global trade partners, especially in Thailand. Additionally, JICA scientists engaged in various kinds of research ranging from pest control to more ecological research assessing biodiversity. This patchwork of entomological activities resulted from the technocratic legacies and vestiges of Japanese visions of technological modernism. Consequently, technical aid designed to understand or control insects as objects of cultivation to multiply or as bodies to minimize can be analyzed to better comprehend the less visible or obvious agendas and systems that contribute to technological infrastructures.
Lisa Onaga (Wed,) studied this question.