Caravan mobility and brigandage in Northern China (18th-20th centuries): Imperial archives, narratives and orality
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caravan trade human mobility merchants networks brigandage Qing imperial archives Northern ChinaSujets proches
Mobility Internal migrationCiter ce document
Laurent Chircop-Reyes, « Caravan mobility and brigandage in Northern China (18th-20th centuries): Imperial archives, narratives and orality », HAL-SHS : histoire, ID : 10670/1.8sihdq
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Caravan mobility in late imperial Northern China is well known by historians. It is, however, relatively little studied from the point of view of brigandage. There is certainly no lack of sources containing clues about it. Numerous Qing imperial archives (1644-1911) concerning attacks by brigands on travelling groups exist, and several narratives provide information about local practices to protect people from brigandage. Merchants and migrants indeed had to cross vast spaces subject to complex logics of territoriality and partly beyond the control of the state. This presentation will explore the possibilities of deepening our understanding of the social, professional, and lineage organisation of caravan practices when facing challenges to their mobility between the eighteenth and early twentieth centuries.