The Empire after the Empire: Colonial Borders, Identity Belonging and the Cosntruction of China
Abstract
The aim of this article is to analyze Chinese State-construction program within thew last hundred years, with the definitive annexation of Central Asian peripheral territories to its frontiers; in doing this, we will use Norbert Elias’ “civilité” concept as our starting point, as the “expression and symbol of a social formation that encompasses the most diverse nationalities”. Chinese territorial expansion, a consequence of the conquest by the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the mid-20th century of most of the territories already annexed by the Qing, has left the contemporary Chinese state with ethnic and political complexities. We will therefore reflect on whether sinicization was a real phenomenon, whether highlighting the non-Han ethnicity in history undermined the unity of the country, and on the legitimation of the Qing conquests in Central Asia and its narrativization as "unification" by the PRC. The issue will be analyzed from a decolonial perspective, focusing on the hegemonic and unequal relations that are established between China and the non-Sinic populations that live within its borders. We will pay special attention to the Uyghur case.
Downloads
References
AGAMBEN, G. (1990): La comunità che viene, Torino, Einaudi Editore.
AGNEW, J. (2012): “Looking back to look forward: Chinese geopolitical narratives and China's past”, Eurasian Geography and Economics, 53(3), pp. 301-314.
Allès, É. (2015): “Minority Nationalities in China: Internal Orientalism”, en After Orientalism: Critical Perspectives on Western Agency and Eastern Re-appropriations, Leiden, Brill, pp. 134-141.
ANDERSON, B. (1993): Comunidades imaginadas: reflexiones sobre el origen y la difusión del nacionalismo, México, DF, Fondo de Cultura Económica.
ANDERSON, B. (2001): “Western nationalism and eastern nationalism: Is there a difference that matters?”, New Left Review, 21, pp. 31-42.
BHABHA, H.K. (ed.) (2010): Nación y narración. Entre la ilusión de una identidad y las diferencias culturales, Buenos Aires, Siglo Veintiuno.
CABRAL, A. (2011): “Libertação nacional e cultura. In M. Ribeiro Sanches (Ed.), Malhas que os Impérios tecem”, en Textos anticoloniais, contextos pós-coloniais, Lisboa, Edições 70, pp. 355-375.
CASTRO-GÓMEZ, Santiago, y GROSFOGUEL, R. (eds.) (2007): El Giro Decolonial: Reflexiones Para Una Diversidad Epistémica Más Allá Del Capitalismo Global, Bogotá, Siglo del Hombre Editores.
CHAMBERS, I. (ed.) (2006): Esercizi di potere: Gramsci, Said e il postcoloniale, Roma, Meltemi.
CLIFF, T. (2016): Oil and water: Being Han in Xinjiang, Chicago, The Chicago University Press.
CROSSLEY, P.K. (1999): A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology, Berkeley, University of California Press.
CROSSLEY, P.K., y RAWSKI, E.S. (1993): A Profile of The Manchu Language in Ch'ing History”, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 53(1), pp. 63-102.
ELIAS, N. (2015): El proceso de la civilización: Investigaciones sociogenéticas y psicogenéticas, México, FCE.
ELLIOT, M.C. (2001): The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China, Stanford, Stanford University Press.
FAIRBANK, J.K. (ed.) (1968): The Chinese World Order. Traditional China's Foreign Relations, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.
FAIRBANK, J.K. (1986): The great Chinese revolution, 1800-1985, New York, Harper & Row.
FAIRBANK, J.K., y GOLDMAN, M. (2006): China: A New History, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.
GLADNEY, Dru C. (1994): “Representing Nationality in China: Refiguring Majority/Minority Identities”, The Journal of Asian Studies, 53(1), pp. 92-123.
GRAMSCI, A. (1977): Quaderni del carcere, vol. III, Milano, Einaudi Editore.
GROSFOGUEL, R. (2008a): "Para descolonizar os estudos de economia política e os estudos pós-coloniais: Transmodernidade, pensamento de fronteira e colonialidade global”, Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais, 80, pp. 115-147.
GROSFOGUEL, R. (2008b): "Hacia Un Pluri-Versalismo Transmoderno Decolonial”, Tabula Rasa, 9, pp.199-251.
GROSFOGUEL, R. (2011): “La Descolonización Del Conocimiento: Diálogo Crítico Entre La Visión Descolonial De Frantz Fanon Y La Sociología Descolonial De Boaventura De Sousa Santos”. Consulta: 3 de Junio 2021 (http://www.boaventuradesousasantos.pt/media/RAMON%20GROSFOGUEL%20SOBRE%20BOAVENTURA%20Y%20FANON.pdf).
HARRIS, R. (2019): “Bulldozing mosques: the latest tactic in China’s war against Uighur culture”, The Guardian. Consulta: 30 de Noviembre de 2019 (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/07/bulldozing-mosques-china-war-uighur-culture-xinjiang)
HOSTETLER, L. (2001): Qing Colonial Enterprise: Ethnography and Cartography in Early Modern China, Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press.
JACOBS, J.M. (2016): Xinjiang and the Modern Chinese State, Seattle/Londres, University of Washington Press.
KIRBY, W.C. (2017): “When did China become China? Thoughts on the twentieth century”, en The teleology of the modern nation-state, University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 105-114.
LEDERBACH, J.P. (2005): The Moral Imagination. The Art and Soul of Building Peace, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
LEIBOLD, J. (2007): Reconfiguring Chinese Nationalism: How the Qing Frontier and Its Indigenes Became Chinese, New York, Palgrave MacMillan.
LÉVI-STRAUSS, C. (2012): Raza y Cultura, Madrid, Ediciones Cátedra.
LI, Q. (2019): “China explores effective governance of religion in secular world”, Global Times. Consulta 2 de Diciembre 2019 (http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1134750.shtml)
LIPMAN, J. (1996): “Hyphenated Chinese: Sino-Muslim Identities in Modern China”, en Remapping China. Fissures in Historical Terrain, Stanford, Stanford University Press, pp. 97-112.
MAALOUF, A. (2009): Identidades asesinas, Madrid, Alianza Editorial.
MAKEHAM, J. (2008): "Daotong and Chinese Culture”, en Lost Soul. “Confucianism” in Contemporary Chinese Academic Discourse, Leiden, Brill, pp. 149-167.
MILLWARD, J.A. (2018): “What It’s Like to Live in a Surveillance State”, The New York Times. Consulta 28 de Mayo de 2019 (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/03/opinion/sunday/china-surveillance-state-uighurs.html)
MILLWARD, J.A. (2019): "‘Reeducating’ Xinjiang’s Muslims”, The New York Review of Books. Consulta 20 de Marzo de 2020 (https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/02/07/reeducating-xinjiangs-muslims/?utm_source=chinafile&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=none)
MILLWARD, J.A. (2020a): “‘China’ as a Polylith: a new historical paradigm reflecting diversity and pluralism of East Asian Mainland Polities”, Ponencia presentad en el encuentro III Remapping Asian Studies, 10-12 marzo 2020, Granada.
MILLWARD, J.A. (2020b): “We need a new approach to teaching modern Chinese history: we have lazily repeated false narratives for too long”. Consulta: 3 de Junio 2021 (https://jimmillward.medium.com/we-need-a-new-approach-to-teaching-modern-chinese-history-we-have-lazily-repeated-false-d24983bd7ef2)
MILLWARD, J.A., DUNNELL, R.W., ELLIOTT, M.C., y FORÊT, P. (eds.) (2004): New Qing Imperial History. The Making of Inner Asian Empire at Qing Chengde, London, Routledge.
OAKES, T. (2012): "Looking out to look in: the use of the periphery in China's geopolitical narratives”, Eurasian Geography and Economics, 53(3), pp. 315-326.
OLIVIERI, C. (2017): “Desarrollo económico regional en China - La Región Autónoma de Xinjiang”, en XIII Congreso de la Asociación de Historia Contemporánea. La Historia. Lost in Translation?, Albacete, Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, pp. 3443-3452.
OLIVIERI, C. (2018): “Religious independence of Chinese Muslim East Turkestan”, en Understanding Religious Violence. Radicalism and Terrorism in Religion Explored via Six Case Studies, New York, Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 39-72.
OLIVIERI, C. y SERRANO MUÑOZ, J. (eds.) (2021, printing): East Asia, Latin America, and the Decolonization of Transpacific Studies, New York, Palgrave MacMillan.
ORTEGA SANTOS, A. y OLIVIERI, C. (2020): Saberes Bioculturales. En pie de Re-existencias en el Sur Global, Granada, Universidad de Granada.
QUIJANO, A. y WALLERSTEIN, I. (1992): “La americanidad como concepto, o América en el moderno sistema mundial”, Revista internacional de Ciencias Sociales, 134, pp. 583-592.
RAWSKI, E.S. (1996): "Presidential Address: Reenvisioning the Qing: The Significance of the Qing Period in Chinese History”, The Journal of Asian Studies, 55(4), pp. 829-850.
RAWSKI, E.S. (2015): Early Modern China and Northeast Asia. Cross-Border Perspectives, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
RFA. (2019): “China Plans to 'Sinicize' Islam as Muslims Warn of Eradication Campaign”. Consulta: 8 de Junio de 2021 (https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/islam-01072019124436.html)
ROBERTS, S. (2020): The War on Uyghurs. China’s Campaign against Xinjiang’s Muslims, Manchester, Manchester University Press.
SANTOS, B.d.S. (2007): “Para além do Pensamento Abissal: Das linhas globais a uma ecologia de saberes”, Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais, 78, pp. 3-46.
SANTOS, B.d.S. (2014): Derechos humanos, democracia y desarrollo, Bogotá, Centro de Estudios de Derecho, Justicia y Sociedad, Dejusticia.
SANTOS, B.d.S., y MENESES, M.P. (eds.) (2014): Epistemologías del Sur. Perspectivas, Madrid, Ediciones Akal.
SERRANO MUÑOZ, J. (2021): “Decolonial Theory in East Asia? Outlining a Shared Paradigm of Epistemologies of the South”, Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais, 124, pp. 5-26.
SZPORLUK, R. (1993): Communism and Nationalism: Karl Marx versus Friedrich List, Oxford,Oxford University Press.
THUM, R. (2018): “What Really Happens in China’s ‘Re-education’ Camps”, The New York Times. Consulta: 20 de Marzo de 2020 (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/opinion/china-re-education-camps.html)
UNDP. (2013): China National Human Development Report 2013. Sustainable and Liveable Cities: Toward Ecological Civilization. Consulta: 10 de Junio de 2020 (http://www.cn.undp.org/content/dam/china/docs/Publications/UNDP-CH_2013%20NHDR_EN.pdf)
UNDP. (2020): China National Human Development Report Special Edition. In Pursuit of a More Sustainable Future for All: China’s Historic Transformation over Four Decades of Human Development. Consulta: 10 de Enero de 2021 (https://www.cn.undp.org/content/dam/china/docs/Publications/NHDR-ENG.pdf)
VASILE, I. (2019): "Nacionalismo(s)", Dicionário Alice. Consulta: 8 de Junio 2021 (https://alice.ces.uc.pt/dictionary/?id=23838&pag=23918&id_lingua=1&entry=24416)
VILLARD, F. (2010): “‘Class’, ‘Race’ and Language: imagining China and the discourse on the category ‘Han’ in the writing of Marxist revolutionary Qu Qiubai (1899–1935)”, Asian Ethnicity, 11(3), pp. 311-324.
WALEY-COHEN, J. (1991): Exile in Mid-Qing China: Banishment to Xinjiang, 1758-1820, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press.
WALEY-COHEN, J. (2004): “The New Qing History”, Radical History Review, 88, pp. 193-206.
WALEY-COHEN, J. (2006): The Culture of War in China, New York, I. B. Tauris.
WALLERSTEIN, I. (1989): El moderno sistema mundial II: el mercantilismo y la consolidación de la economía-mundo europea, 1600-1750, Madrid, Historia Siglo XXI.
WALLERSTEIN, I. (1999): El moderno sistema mundial III: La segunda era de la gran expansión de la economía mundo-capitalista, 1730-1850, Madrid, Historia Siglo XXI.
ZHANG, L. (1988): “The Myth of the Other: China in the Eyes of the West”, Critical Inquiry, 15(1), pp.108-131.
Copyright (c) 2022 Historical Sociology
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Las obras que se publican en esta revista están sujetas a los siguientes términos:
1. El Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Murcia (la editorial) conserva los derechos patrimoniales (copyright) de las obras publicadas, y favorece y permite la reutilización de las mismas bajo la licencia de uso indicada en el punto 2.
2. Las obras se publican en la edición electrónica de la revista bajo una licencia Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-SinObraDerivada 4.0 España (texto legal). Se pueden copiar, usar, difundir, transmitir y exponer públicamente, siempre que: i) se cite la autoría y la fuente original de su publicación (revista, editorial y URL de la obra); ii) no se usen para fines comerciales; iii) se mencione la existencia y especificaciones de esta licencia de uso.
3. Condiciones de auto-archivo. Se permite y se anima a los autores a difundir electrónicamente las versiones pre-print (versión antes de ser evaluada) y/o post-print (versión evaluada y aceptada para su publicación) de sus obras antes de su publicación, ya que favorece su circulación y difusión más temprana y con ello un posible aumento en su citación y alcance entre la comunidad académica. Color RoMEO: verde.
