[𝐒𝐰𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧: 𝐑𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐃𝐲𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐜𝐬, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐉𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐂𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐜 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐋𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐓𝐚𝐢, 𝟏𝟖𝟔𝟎-𝟏𝟗𝟒𝟗]
𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐫: Yu-Cheng Shih
𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞: December 6, 2023 (Wednesday)
𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞: 14:00 – 15: 30 PM (HKT)
𝐕𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐞: Yasumoto International Academic Park Room 501 (YIA_501), The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Conducted in English. All are welcome.
𝐑𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐤:
https://cloud.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/webform/view.php?id=13677962
𝐀𝐛𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭:
In this presentation, Richard will revisit the histories of modern Yangzi Delta (Jiangnan 江南) by focusing on the perspectives from the underclass fishers in inland water peripheries. For centuries, Jiangnan has been the primary socio-political and economic core of China with the most developed hydraulic systems. Yet it remains unclear how such hydraulic mis/management impacted the shoreline ecosystems and thus reshaped the local societies. Richard’s research historicizes these anthropogenic consequences after the mid-nineteenth century by emphasizing the considerable population spreading along rivers, canals, and lakes—with a central focus on the understudied boat-dwelling communities in Lake Tai (Taihu 太湖). Richard will illustrate how much the changing riverine surroundings created a liminal sphere for these mobile groups by informing their social patterns and cultural identities distinct from the land-based societies. Most of these drifting people remain poor and illiterate so unable to leave written sources; nevertheless, their religious practices—Catholicism in particular— provide first-hand data to recover their hidden voices from below. Drawing on newly released hydrographical data, missionary documents, and my ethnographical fieldwork of oral interviews with rural fishing Catholics who still lived on boats until the early 2000s, this study forms a dialogue with the given historical and governmental archives regarding authority-based narratives in securing the waters. By bridging water environments and localized Christianity, it aims to unpack the historical processes in forming the social margins of modern Jiangnan.
𝐁𝐢𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐲:
Yu-Cheng Shih, also named Richard, is a Ph.D. candidate in history at Brown University with inter-disciplinary training between history, anthropology, and digital mapping. As an environmental historian working on inland water dynamics in modern China, his research combines environmental humanities and local societies to investigate histories of migration and refugees; natural calamities, diseases, and Anthropocene; and politics of belonging across Taiwan, China, and East Asia. He is currently visiting the Centre of China Studies in the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
𝐄𝐧𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐫𝐲: jefferytse@cuhk.edu.hk
