Making Genealogy in Late Imperial China: The Self-representation of Rural Elites in Huizhou

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Barend J. ter Haar
• Subject Area: Asian Studies ; Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 519654077

This project is part of a four-project- “World Genealogy. Presenting, documenting, and instrumentalizing lineages in early modern Asia, Europe, and the Middle East”. The four projects—submitted independently, yet simultaneously—discuss genealogical practices of • Middle Eastern politics • Japanese Buddhism • European aristocracies and state governments. • China’s rural elites The projects together attempt to establish a conceptual roadmap towards a future cross-culturally comparative investigation of genealogical practices. All projects share a common research agenda and working schedule, focusing on genealogical media (year 1 – Research Pathway A), routines of genealogical knowledge management (year 2 – Research Pathway B), and the role of genealogical arguments in creating social, political, and cultural legitimacy (year 3 – Research Pathway C). For a more extensive description of our research agenda, please see the attached pdf-file “Framework Document”. In the context of the World-Genealogy group, this project focuses on five genealogies produced by rural elites in Xu village of the Huizhou region (Anhui province in modern China), which were published from 1568 to 1948 and cover the politically very distinct periods of the late Ming (circa 1536–1644) and Qing (1645–1911) dynasties as well as the Republican era (1912–1949). This will be a case study into the process of knowledge production during the compilation of genealogical texts. Moreover, the project will locate the process of genealogy-making within its wider social, political, and cultural settings. Through the power and prestige of writing and printing, genealogies were also discursive tools or weapons that could be used for a variety of purposes. The in-depth analysis of village genealogy in late imperial China offers an example of rural kinship construction as opposed to the more common historical study of high-level elites.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants