Territorialising the frontier: knowledge production and the emergence of modern territoriality in China

Li, Andy Hanlun (2023) Territorialising the frontier: knowledge production and the emergence of modern territoriality in China. PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Abstract

This thesis examines the concept of modern territoriality through historical research on the epistemic and conceptual transformations that facilitated the emergence of modern China as a territorial state. Existing IR discussions on modern territoriality have focused on specific political and material technologies, such as cartography, border, and the concepts of territory and sovereignty. I argue that modern territoriality should be understood as a polysemic, processual phenomenon that is produced through a diverse range of technoscientific knowledge and practices that concern not only the physical environment but also its human inhabitants. By rethinking the concept of modern territoriality through in-depth historical research on China, this thesis contributes to IR by arguing that the emergence of China as a territorial state is a coeval and constitutive part of the global transformation towards political modernity, rather than the result of imperial China’s passive encounter with a ready-made international system. In doing so, this thesis also contributes to existing discussions on modern territoriality by pointing out the co-production between the modern territorial state and a wider set of technoscientific knowledge and practices. To understand how the modern territorial state is co-produced through knowledge production about people and the environment, I examine how the Qing imperial frontiers were reconceptualised as the internal frontier of the new Chinese state through knowledge production about peoples and the physical environment. Rather than simply inheriting the Qing Empire’s Inner Asia territories, the Republic of China (1912 – 1949) and its successor the People’s Republic of China (1949 – present) relied on specialist knowledge production that made visible specific ethnocultural and environmental qualities. In doing so, the production of social and environmental knowledge shaped the political rationalities that are used to govern the people and the environment. Drawing on official documents, academic publications, personal letters, and visual materials, my research demonstrates how people ranging from 19th Confucian statecraft scholars and 1930s Western-educated Chinese social anthropologists and meteorologists helped to shape how the physical space and the human inhabitants of China are understood.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Additional Information:	© 2023 Andy Hanlun Li
Library of Congress subject classification:	J Political Science > JQ Political institutions Asia J Political Science > JZ International relations
Sets:	Departments > International Relations
Supervisor:	Callahan, William A.
URI:	http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/4639

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