Legal Practices, Colonial Rivalry, and Identity in China's Borderlands, 1880-1940
| Project/Area Number |
19K23102
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Review Section |
0103:History, archaeology, museology, and related fields
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| Research Institution | The University of Tokyo |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2019-08-30 – 2021-03-31
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| Project Status |
Granted (Fiscal Year 2019)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥1,820,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥420,000)
Fiscal Year 2020: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
Fiscal Year 2019: ¥390,000 (Direct Cost: ¥300,000、Indirect Cost: ¥90,000)
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| Keywords | China's borderlands / border disputes / legal practices / ethnic identity / colonial rivalry / Sino-Burmese Borderlands / Legal institutions / Ethnicity / Border disputes / Colonialism |
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| Outline of Research at the Start |
This research will compare legal practices in China's border regions with British Burma, French Indochina, and Russia from the 1880s until the 1940s. It will examine the role of these legal practices in creating new discourses of ethnic identity and promoting China's state-building efforts. This objective will be achieved through the analysis of legal cases and government correspondence housed in archives in Europe and Asia. In this regard, this research will provide a better understanding of China's transition from an empire to a nation-state during this period.
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
In order to achieve my research goals, I engaged in three kinds of activities during the 2019-2020 fiscal year. First, I completed a comprehensive examination of the recent scholarship in the fields of Chinese legal history, ethnicity, and border studies. Second, I conducted research trips to collect archival sources on the Sino-British frontier meetings housed in the National Archives in London, the British Library, and the National Archives of Myanmar in Yangon during January and February 2020. The archival sources collected during this period consist of legal cases adjudicated by Sino-British courts that operated along the Sino-Burmese border region between the 1900s and late 1930s. Third, I presented papers on the Sino-Burmese borderlands at the following venues: invited talks at the University of Sydney, Australia (September 2019), as well as conferences at the National Library in Naypyidaw, Myanmar (September 2019) and SOAS University of London (January 2020). At these venues, I received valuable feedback from established scholars in my field. I also attended a workshop on legal practices along the Sino-Russian borderlands held at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (September 2019) that provided me with the opportunity to expand my academic contacts with Japan-based scholars in my field.
The above-mentioned activities enabled me to elucidate the impact of pluralistic practices in state-building and the formation of ethnic identities along China's borderlands as well as contribute to the methodological discussions in the field.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
During my research trips to Great Britain and Myanmar, I managed to collect a greater number of archival sources on the Sino-British frontier meetings than I had originally expected. I have also started to write an article on this topic that I intend to submit for publication during the next fiscal year. In addition, I had paper proposals on my JSPS research accepted by two upcoming international conferences: the ISHMap Symposium and the European Association of Chinese Studies biannual conference.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic introduced some uncertainty in my plans to conduct archival research abroad. I had to postpone my research trip to Taiwan in February 2020 due to travel restrictions. In Taiwan, I had planned to collect sources at Academia Historica and the Archives of the Institute of Modern History at Academia Sinica. If the situation improves and travel restrictions are lifted, I intend to visit these archives in August 2020. Despite this setback, I expect to be able to complete my project according to the original timetable.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
During my second year, I plan to continue collecting sources with trips to the following archives: Academia Sinica and Academia Historica (Taiwan); the First Historical Archives and the Yunnan Provincial Archives (China); the State Archives of the Russian Federation (Russia); and the Archives Nationales d'Outre-mer (France). Since I have already examined sufficient files on the Sino-British frontier meetings, I will focus on collecting archival material on legal pluralism along the Sino-Russian and Sino-Vietnamese (French Indochina) borders. The comparison and analysis of these legal practices will offer fresh perspectives on Chinese state-building along its border regions during the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. I also intend to present my research in Japan and international conferences abroad, including the ISHMap conference (June 2020) and the European Association for Chinese Studies biannual conference (August 2020).
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Report
(1 results)
Research Products
(5 results)
