89 © The Author(s) 2017 D. Howland et al. (eds.), Art and Sovereignty in Global Politics, DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-95016-4_4 CHAPTER 4 Dongbei, Manchukuo, Manchuria: Territory, Artifacts, and the Multiple Bodies of Sovereignty in Northeast Asia Vimalin Rujivacharakul V. Rujivacharakul Department of Art History , University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA SOVEREIGNTY AND MATERIAL CULTURE STUDIES: A BACKGROUND When it comes to the study of material culture, theories about govern- mentality and rulers can pose challenges. Take discussions by Giorgio Agamben (1942–) and Michel Foucault (1926–1984), for example. In Homo Sacer: Sovereignty Power and Bare Life, Agamben argues that the right to rule is not derived from a sovereign’s birthright but from a juridical system established to create and sustain the political body of a nation-state. 1 Accordingly, a ruled realm or a nation-state is not a mere imagined community but a juridico-political space that simultaneously exercises and is exercised in order to regulate the practice of governance. A state can only emerge when its juridical boundaries are drawn to iden- tify the subjects, separating those within the governed realm from those who are excluded. In this way, citizens and outlaws are identiied and separated from each other, as an organized society turns into a regulated dhowland@uwm.edu