IMH-EFEO Lecture Series
“French Historical Research and the Modern Era”
2022-2023 - People(s), State(s) and Citizens in Crisis


Speaker:
Dr. Laurent CHIRCOP-REYES
French Center for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC)

Title:
Caravan mobility and brigandage in Northern China (18th-20th centuries): Imperial archives, narratives and orality

Date:Monday, October 24, 2022 at 2:30 pm

Venue:
Conference Room 1, Archive Building, Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica

Abstract:
Caravan mobility in late imperial Northern China is well known by
historians. It is, however, relatively little studied from the point of
view of brigandage. There is certainly no lack of sources containing
clues about it. Numerous Qing imperial archives (1644-1911) concerning
attacks by brigands on travelling groups exist, and several narratives
provide information about local practices to protect people from
brigandage. Merchants and migrants indeed had to cross vast spaces
subject to complex logics of territoriality and partly beyond the
control of the state. This presentation will explore the possibilities
of deepening our understanding of the social, professional, and lineage
 organisation of caravan practices when facing challenges to their
mobility between the eighteenth and early twentieth centuries.


The talk will be chaired by Dr. SU Sheng-hsiung, Assistant Research Fellow, Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica
The talk will be given in English. Registration is not required.
With the support of the French Office in Taipei (BFT).

 lecture