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 – 2022-03-31
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| Project Status |
Granted (Fiscal Year 2020)
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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 |
During the 2020-2021 fiscal year, I conducted four types of activities to achieve the goals outlined in my project. First, I carefully examined the dozens of files that I collected during my research trips in the United Kingdom and Myanmar during the previous year. These files consisted of three kinds of sources: legal case proceedings adjudicated by joint frontier courts in the Sino-Burmese borderlands (1900s-1930s); correspondence from the British consuls in Tengyue (1910s-1930s); and government reports from British colonial officials. Second, I collected Chinese archival materials made available online by the Institute of Modern History at Academic Sinica in Taiwan. Third, I presented papers on issues related to state-building along China's borderlands at the following venues (held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic): V Symposium of the International Society for the History of the Map (June 2020) and the Faculty Research Forum at the University of Tokyo (November 2020). Finally, I am completing a journal article that examines how joint Sino-British frontier courts in the Sino-Burmese borderlands reshaped the relationship between the border populations, state agents, and colonial officials during the 1930s. The article will be submitted for publication shortly.
The activities that I engaged during the past fiscal year enabled me to examine the role of frontier courts in state-building efforts, in particular the formation of ethnic identities along the Sino-Burmese borderlands and will result in the publication of the partial results of my research.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
Due to travel restrictions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, I was unable to conduct archival research abroad as originally planned. While I managed to obtain archival sources from Taiwanese archives (since they are available online), I still need to collect sources in archives in France and Russia. I plan to complete archival research in these two countries during the 2021-22 fiscal year.
In addition, two conferences that accepted papers proposals on my JSPS research were postponed due to the pandemic: the European Association of Chinese Studies biannual conference (to be originally held in Leipzig in 2020) and the Asian Studies Conference Japan (to be held at Sophia University, Tokyo).
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
During the 2021-22 fiscal year, I plan to complete the process of collecting sources in the following archives during summer: the State Archives of the Russian Federation (Russia) and the Archives Nationales d'Outre-mer (France). These sources will provide me with the sufficient sources to engage in a comparative approach of pluralistic legal practices along China's borderlands with Russia, Vietnam, and Burma during the late nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century. Through this comparison, this research will provide original insights on Chinese attempts to extend the reach of the state in its borderlands and forge ethnic and national identities. I will also be presenting my research in Japan and at conferences abroad. I already have two paper presentations confirmed (which were postponed last year due to the pandemic) and I am waiting for the notice on a proposal that I submitted to the British Association of Chinese Studies.
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Report
(2 results)
Research Products
(8 results)
