D009: Frontier Encounters and Knowledge Production in Qing Inner Asia: Competing Narratives between the Qing State and Travellers to Frontiers

Organizer(s)

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  Anne-Sophie Pratte

  Harvard University, Canada

Chair(s)

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  Mark Elliott

  Harvard University, United States

Paper Presenter(s)

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  Kaijun Chen

  Brown University, United States
• 

  Lei Lin

  Duke Kunshan University, United States
• 

  Huiying Chen

  University of Illinois, Chicago, United States
• 

  Anne-Sophie Pratte

  Harvard University, Canada

Discussant(s)

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  Matthew Mosca

  University of Washington, United States

Session Abstract: This panel sheds new light on knowledge production on Qing frontiers by focusing on the tension between imperial views and everyday experiences in Qing Inner Asia. While the history of Qing frontiers has traditionally been told from a state standpoint with a focus on military conquest and political administration, the papers aim at uncovering the social history of these regions by bringing to the fore the perspectives of new actors such as travelers, merchants, imperial officials, and local leaders, and their roles in shaping the relationship between knowledge and power on the Qing frontier through their encounters in local societies. This panel brings together original research on three main frontier regions of the Qing Empire, employing sources in Chinese, Manchu, Tibetan, and Mongolian, to underscore cross-frontier comparisons and different types of social networks that either constituted or challenged state power. Kaijun Chen examines a set of travelogues of Manchus and Han Chinese who traveled to Mongolia to show how state agendas shaped narratives on local society. Huiying Chen's work highlights the contrast in mentality between imperial policies and merchants' accounts on their incursions into Xinjiang. The cases of official crimes brought by Lei Lin reveal the ways in which frontier circumstances informed Qing officials deployed to the Himalayan frontier to make irrational decisions that contradicted the state agenda. Anne-Sophie Pratte's work showcases the contribution of local Mongols to the understanding of territory and geography in Mongolia.

Presentations:

• What Were They Doing There: Mandarin Travel Logs on Mongolia
  

  Paper Presenter: Kaijun Chen – Brown University
• Borderland Territorial Bureaucracy, Official Crimes, and the Qing State Capacity in Tibet in the Late 18th Century
  

  Paper Presenter: Lei Lin – Duke Kunshan University
• Travels and Frontier in Eighteenth-century China
  

  Paper Presenter: Huiying Chen – University of Illinois, Chicago
• Negotiating Geography in 19th Century Qing Mongolia
  

  Paper Presenter: Anne-Sophie Pratte – Harvard University