Abstract:Empires are built around the control of information, with an often-overlooked aspect of empire building being the construction of tools of reference. These tools incorporate in summary form the multiplicity of inscriptions that are a product of the empire's epistemological operations. In order to shed some light on this face of empire, this article focuses on three readings of the minor forest products bulletins published by the Bureau of Forestry of the Philippines in the early twentieth century. The first of these readings sees the bulletins as demonstrating the Bureau of Forestry's mastery of the forest domain in the face of natural and human resistance to the bureau's work. In the second reading, we can see the bureau's efforts to create and assist "botanical entrepreneurs" capable and willing to exploit forest products in an efficient manner. Finally, we can read the bulletins as particular manifestations of the botanical guide as a genre. In this case, the bulletins created a series of "inscription clusters" that served to enhance the authority of the Bureau of Forestry as a mediator between users and the forests of the Philippines.

中文翻译：

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阅读菲律宾林业局的小型林产品公报：参考文献在 20 世纪早期的美利坚帝国中的作用的案例研究

摘要：帝国是围绕信息控制而建立的，而帝国建设中一个经常被忽视的方面是参考工具的构建。这些工具概括地包含了作为帝国认识论运作产物的多种铭文。为了揭示帝国的这一面貌，本文重点介绍了菲律宾林业局在 20 世纪初出版的次要林产品公报的三读。这些解读中的第一个将公告视为展示了林业局在面对自然和人类对林业局工作的抵抗时对森林领域的掌握。在二读中，我们可以看到该局在创建和协助“植物企业家”方面的努力 有能力并愿意以有效的方式开发森林产品。最后，我们可以将公告阅读为植物学指南作为一种体裁的特殊表现形式。在这种情况下，公告创建了一系列“铭文集群”，以增强林业局作为用户与菲律宾森林之间调解人的权威。