Empire and Identity in Guizhou Local Resistance to Qing Expansion

• Main Author: Weinstein, Jodi L. (auth)
• Format: Electronic Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Seattle University of Washington Press 2013
• Series: Studies on Ethnic Groups in China
• Subjects: Ethnic minorities & multicultural studies; Asian history
• Online Access: OAPEN Library: download the publication; OAPEN Library: download the publication; OAPEN Library: description of the publication

Open-access edition: DOI 10.6069/9780295804811 This historical investigation describes the Qing imperial authorities' attempts to consolidate control over the Zhongjia, a non-Han population, in eighteenth-century Guizhou, a poor, remote, and environmentally harsh province in Southwest China. Far from submitting peaceably to the state's quest for hegemony, the locals clung steadfastly to livelihood choices-chiefly illegal activities such as robbery, raiding, and banditry-that had played an integral role in their cultural and economic survival. Using archival materials, indigenous folk narratives, and ethnographic research, Jodi Weinstein shows how these seemingly subordinate populations challenged state power.