Qing Colonial Enterprise: Ethnography and Cartography in Early Modern China (review)

Transcription

1 Qing Colonial Enterprise: Ethnography and Cartography in Early Modern China (review) Zhao Gang China Review International, Volume 15, Number 1, 2008, pp (Review) Published by University of Hawai'i Press DOI: For additional information about this article Accessed 7 May :07 GMT

2 106 China Review International: Vol. 5, No. 1, 2008 Laura Hostetler. Qing Colonial Enterprise: Ethnography and Cartography in Early Modern China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, xx, 257 pp. Paperback, ISBN by University of Hawai i Press Both in China and in the West, much work has been done in the past to examine visual representations of the Qing empire produced during the Qing dynasty, such as the Imperial Illustrations of Tributaries (Zhigong tu), various albums, and Western-style Chinese atlases. However, until Hostetler authored Qing Colonial Enterprise: Ethnography and Cartography in Early Modern China, none of this research had taken advantage of such materials to provide a new approach for addressing the issue of whether the paradigm of the early modern applies to Qing China, an important question still bothering Qing historians and discussed mainly in terms of economic and social change. The latest conception of early modern extends its scope to include change not only at the social and economic level, but also in the cultural realm, especially momentous changes in conceptions of space and thus cartography and the emergence of significant new empirical ethnography (p. 1). Inspired by this received paradigm and on the basis of newly assessed visual materials depicting non-han people, Hostetler reconsiders the applicability of the early modern model to Qing China by examining how Manchu rulers utilized cartography and ethnography for their colonization of Guizhou, a non-han province in southwest China during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Hostetler argues that, in this case, Manchu cartography and ethnography not only moved away from traditional practices, they also displayed two trends similar to their early modern Western counterparts: direct observation and exacting measurement. Besides an introduction and a conclusion, Hostetler s work consists of seven chapters and features fifteen colorful pictures, most of which are from Miao albums made in the eighteenth century. The first three chapters deal with the Qing use of cartographical knowledge and techniques introduced by the Jesuits, while the remaining four chapters focus on Qing ethnography. Chapter 1 briefly outlines the Manchu strategy for ruling Han and non-han people, examines how the Kangxi emperor understood the complicated international situations facing his empire, and discusses the political meaning of Imperial Illustrations of Tributaries (Zhigong tu), that is, as a claim to universality. In her opening chapter, the author uses Antoine Gaubil s archives preserved in his letters from Beijing and previously unexamined by scholars to discuss Kangxi s views on the Western world, advancing our understanding of Qing relations with the outside world, especially connections with Western countries. Also, her analysis of two edicts issued by the Qianlong emperor on making illustration of non-han people is fascinating. Hostetler s detailed exploration of

3 Reviews 107 these edicts clarifies for the reader issues that were all once mysterious, such as the desires and goals of the emperor for the project, the political nature of these illustrations, and the concrete process of carrying them out. In her second chapter, Hostetler points out that although mapping in China is as old as Chinese civilization (p. 4), traditional cartographic techniques did not feed the imperial Qing need to consolidate its colonization of the frontier. To respond to the problems of managing new territory, such as Guizhou, Manchu rulers embraced the accurate and to-scale mapping techniques introduced by Jesuits into China during the High Qing. However, this trend was not unique to Qing China, as it also occurred within other early modern expanding empires, such as France and Russia, which were plagued by similar problems during their colonial expansion. Hostetler stresses this point by comparing mapping activities in Qing China, Russia, and France. Hostetler s analysis is rather fresh and insightful because, prior to this work, few scholars placed the Qing use of Western cartographic techniques within the wider context of global colonization. However, some of her points could be more persuasive if additional attention was focused on the influence of the imperial pursuit of accurate and to-scale maps upon the private production of maps. Imperial mapping was suspended with the completion of the cartographic survey of Xinjiang during the 1760s, but this does not mean that Qing China failed to participate in patronizing cutting-edge world technology due to the pressure it felt from Han Chinese to reject foreign influence (p. 210). Instead, the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, while witnessing the suspension of the official cartographic survey, saw the spread of Western-style cartographic techniques among the literati. For example, in the 1830s, Li Zhaoluo and Xu Song, two of China s most prestigious scholars at the time, began to follow the imperial model, producing Chinese and Xinjiang maps with longitude and latitude markings. In chapters 3 through 7, Hostetler, by examining the eighteenth-century Chinese ethnography of Guizhou, focuses on the role of empirical ethnography, another new trend, which, in her view, appeared only during the early modern period, a time of Qing colonization. Chapter 3 manages to provide a starting point in terms of theory for this exploration. Hostetler argues that, as was true for its European counterparts, High Qing ethnography experienced a shift away from reliance upon writing records toward stressing the importance of direct observation when portraying other people. This change was the product of Qing colonization because the expansion efforts of Manchu rulers, like European colonists, required becoming familiar with territory, and demystifying its peoples (p. 82). Providing a geographical background for further analysis, chapter 4 consists of two parts. The first part mainly describes the topography and people of Guizhou, as well as imperial Ming management of the region, while the second part focuses on how the Qing court instituted a new and centralized administration to strengthen its control over Guizhou during the 1720s and 1730s.

4 108 China Review International: Vol. 5, No. 1, 2008 In chapter 5, Hostetler presents a stimulating discussion regarding the connections between ethnography and Qing colonization, detailing how Manchu efforts to improve the management of non-han Miao people in Guizhou reshaped ethnographic writings within local gazetteers. According to Hostetler, the expansion of Qing administrative reach enabled the direct observation of such newly conquered non-han groups, which, in turn, produced a large amount of new empirical material. Based on newly available information, the compilers of local gazetteers depicted other people in a more systematic, refined, and empirical way, which was similar to early modern European ethnography. The significance of Hostetler s analysis reaches beyond the case of Guizhou. Since new gazetteers, which included many ethnographic writings, were produced during the Qing territorial expansion of other frontier areas, such as Manchuria and Xinjiang, her analysis also contributes new insight into these local reference works, especially their descriptions of other people. Hostetler s final two chapters cover one of the three major themes in her book the Miao albums, which came to the attention of the Chinese and Western art markets as early as the mid-nineteenth century but have rarely been assessed vis-à-vis Qing colonization. Chapter 6 explores the physical characteristics, authorship, and content of the Miao albums, as well as the basis for their illustrations. Hostetler stresses that these albums, like the ethnographic writings within local histories, were based largely upon direct observation and served the purpose of governing remote areas of the empire. However, during the nineteenth century, owing to Miao rebellions and distrust among the Han people following such uprisings, the desire to collect up-to-date ethnographic information on each group seems to have waned (p. 182). Miao albums, although they continued to be produced, were no longer based on empirical materials and ceased functioning as a tool for the court to maintain its control over non-han people. Instead, Miao albums served as collectors items generating demand within the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Chinese and foreign art markets. This evolution of the genre over the course of more than two centuries from the 1800s to the present constitutes the bulk of chapter 7, the final chapter of Hostetler s work. Hostetler s book is fascinating and thought-provoking. Perhaps more criticism will be brought to bear on her central argument that the Qing imperial representation of other people through the lens of cartography and ethnography provides new evidence that Qing China was an organic part of the early modern world. However, Hostetler s new approach will inspire scholars to adopt a new perspective vis-à-vis a variety of visual materials and gazetteers produced during the eighteenth century regarding frontier areas other than Guizhou. These sources have been long ignored but academically indispensable to an understanding of Qing territorial expansion or colonization. More important, the investigation of such new source materials provides new insight into a cru-

5 Reviews 109 cial and long-debated question regarding the conception of early modern within the world of Chinese history. In this sense, the book is a must not only for the China field, but also for other historical topics. Zhao Gang Zhao Gang is an assistant professor of history at the University of Akron. Note 1. On the edition, publication, and circulation of gazetteers regarding the frontier areas, see related parts within Zhu Shijia s Zhongguo difangzhi zonglu (a comprehensive list of the Chinese gazetteers) (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1956).