This article examines the biopower of non-Han bodies by considering the intersections of anthropo... more This article examines the biopower of non-Han bodies by considering the intersections of anthropology, racial science, and colonial regimes. During the 1930s and 1940s, when extensive anthropometric research was being undertaken on non-Han populations in the south-western borderlands of China, several anthropologists studied non-Han groups under the aegis of frontier administration. Chinese scholars sought to generate the physical characteristics of ethnic minority groups in the south-west of China through the methodology of body measurement, in order to identify forms of social and political intervention in the management of the non-Han population in wartime. This article examines the global transmission of Western social science in China, highlighting the local reception of Western racial taxonomy. Non-Han bodies were represented as a subcategory of the Mongolian/‘Yellow’ race through anthropometric research. The body measurements of non-Han people were used to demonstrate physical similarities between the Han and various ethnic minority groups in order to evoke a unified Zhonghua minzu (Chinese ethnicity) that embraced both the Han Chinese and frontier ethnic minority groups.
Probing how human variations were conceptualised and visualised in late imperial China, this arti... more Probing how human variations were conceptualised and visualised in late imperial China, this article examines the representation of the body of ethnic minorities in Miao albums, a genre of ethnographic illustrations depicting the bodies, culture and environment of non-Han peoples in the southwest borderlands of China. From the perspective of gender and sexuality, it explores the ways in which, bodies as an indicator of identity, were manipulated to exhibit a superior and inferior binary coding, to weave a web of narrative of human variations, and to constitute China’s imperial order. It first investigates how, by depicting skin colour, nose, eyes, and hair in both visual and textual forms, the bodies of non-Han were constructed as distinctive in the minds of the late imperial male Han Chinese elite. Secondly, focusing on depictions of feet, it interrogates the power generated through representation of a pair of big and exposed ethnic minority women’s feet, by contrasting this with the practice of foot binding of upper class Han Chinese. Finally, by shedding light on a genre of hardly explored depictions of naked women’s bodies: Duanqun Miao 短裙苗 of Guizhou at work and Shui Baiyi水百夷 of Yunnan bathing in a river, the last section adds new dimensions to the intersecting stories of body, sexuality and ethnicity. Cherishing the energy generated from images, this article deciphers the visual codes of the culture of bodies of non-Han people in Miao albums, and thereby it demonstrates the visual regimes of imperial version of order, space and peoples
Traditional scholarship has emphasised the intimate link between the Miao album, a genre of illus... more Traditional scholarship has emphasised the intimate link between the Miao album, a genre of illustration to emerge from colonial expansion in southwest China, and political control. Through a careful reading of evidence collected from prefaces, poems, novels, travel accounts and local gazetteers, this paper argues that these albums were also popularised in the marketplace and viewed for pleasure by consumers who included a far wider section of the population than local government officials alone. Divided into three main sections, it firstly brings the pleasure and curiosity dimensions of Miao albums to the fore; it then argues for a diversity of consumers of these albums than has hitherto been acknowledged, and finally, by probing the process of how and by whom Miao albums were produced, it highlights the participation of professional artists and the widespread practice of copying. Through the decentralisation of the political function of Miao albums, this paper offers new ways of viewing Chinese imperial images within the context of popular culture.
This article examines the biopower of non-Han bodies by considering the intersections of anthropo... more This article examines the biopower of non-Han bodies by considering the intersections of anthropology, racial science, and colonial regimes. During the 1930s and 1940s, when extensive anthropometric research was being undertaken on non-Han populations in the south-western borderlands of China, several anthropologists studied non-Han groups under the aegis of frontier administration. Chinese scholars sought to generate the physical characteristics of ethnic minority groups in the south-west of China through the methodology of body measurement, in order to identify forms of social and political intervention in the management of the non-Han population in wartime. This article examines the global transmission of Western social science in China, highlighting the local reception of Western racial taxonomy. Non-Han bodies were represented as a subcategory of the Mongolian/‘Yellow’ race through anthropometric research. The body measurements of non-Han people were used to demonstrate physical similarities between the Han and various ethnic minority groups in order to evoke a unified Zhonghua minzu (Chinese ethnicity) that embraced both the Han Chinese and frontier ethnic minority groups.
Probing how human variations were conceptualised and visualised in late imperial China, this arti... more Probing how human variations were conceptualised and visualised in late imperial China, this article examines the representation of the body of ethnic minorities in Miao albums, a genre of ethnographic illustrations depicting the bodies, culture and environment of non-Han peoples in the southwest borderlands of China. From the perspective of gender and sexuality, it explores the ways in which, bodies as an indicator of identity, were manipulated to exhibit a superior and inferior binary coding, to weave a web of narrative of human variations, and to constitute China’s imperial order. It first investigates how, by depicting skin colour, nose, eyes, and hair in both visual and textual forms, the bodies of non-Han were constructed as distinctive in the minds of the late imperial male Han Chinese elite. Secondly, focusing on depictions of feet, it interrogates the power generated through representation of a pair of big and exposed ethnic minority women’s feet, by contrasting this with the practice of foot binding of upper class Han Chinese. Finally, by shedding light on a genre of hardly explored depictions of naked women’s bodies: Duanqun Miao 短裙苗 of Guizhou at work and Shui Baiyi水百夷 of Yunnan bathing in a river, the last section adds new dimensions to the intersecting stories of body, sexuality and ethnicity. Cherishing the energy generated from images, this article deciphers the visual codes of the culture of bodies of non-Han people in Miao albums, and thereby it demonstrates the visual regimes of imperial version of order, space and peoples
Traditional scholarship has emphasised the intimate link between the Miao album, a genre of illus... more Traditional scholarship has emphasised the intimate link between the Miao album, a genre of illustration to emerge from colonial expansion in southwest China, and political control. Through a careful reading of evidence collected from prefaces, poems, novels, travel accounts and local gazetteers, this paper argues that these albums were also popularised in the marketplace and viewed for pleasure by consumers who included a far wider section of the population than local government officials alone. Divided into three main sections, it firstly brings the pleasure and curiosity dimensions of Miao albums to the fore; it then argues for a diversity of consumers of these albums than has hitherto been acknowledged, and finally, by probing the process of how and by whom Miao albums were produced, it highlights the participation of professional artists and the widespread practice of copying. Through the decentralisation of the political function of Miao albums, this paper offers new ways of viewing Chinese imperial images within the context of popular culture.
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