|
Pneumonic Plagues, Environmental Changes, and the International Fur Trade: The Retreat of Tarbagan Marmots from Northwest Manchuria, 1900s-30s
Yubin Shen
Front. Hist. China. 2019, 14 (3): 291-322.
https://doi.org/10.3868/s020-008-019-0016-1
Inspired by recent environmental historical studies on animal extinctions and human-animal relations, this paper shifts scholarly attention from the plague-centered narrative of the great Pneumonic Plague Epidemics (1910-11) to the fate of the plague host animals, Tarbagan marmots (Marmota sibirica), and examines their near-extinction in Northwest Manchuria (Hulunbuir) from the 1900s to 1930s. Focusing on changing images of Tarbagan marmots from “inexpensive,” “sacred,” and “beneficial” in the pre-modern period to “valuable,” “dangerous,” and “noxious” in the early twentieth century, it argues that three interrelated factors: the international fur trade, pneumonic plagues, and environment changes together resulted in the “retreat of the marmots.” It also uses this case study to help us better understand larger historical changes that occurred by contextualizing them in terms of human-marmot relations in Manchuria, China and beyond.
References |
Related Articles |
Metrics
|
|
Surviving under the Enemy: Oral Narratives of Middle-Class Women in Japanese-Occupied China (1931-45)
Yihong Pan
Front. Hist. China. 2019, 14 (3): 323-352.
https://doi.org/10.3868/s020-008-019-0017-8
In a fragmented wartime China (1931-45), the levels of violence, suffering, and resistance varied in different regions. The Anti-Japanese War left people with different experiences and memories. To date, both Chinese- and English-language scholarship have paid insufficient attention to the more than two hundred million common Chinese who stayed in Japanese-occupied areas. To help fill this gap, this study provides a thematic analysis of interviews conducted by the author with six Chinese women of the urban middle-class about their experiences in the Japanese-occupied areas. It adds voices and perspectives of ordinary, middle-class women to the rich tapestry of everyday life of wartime China. The oral narratives of these women are everyday accounts of uncertainty, fear, and survival. More important, they are testimonies to the evolution of their gender consciousness and their determination to pursue an education as a means of resisting gender inequality. In addition, these oral narratives show how these women developed strategies in their marriages, work, and political views to reconcile with the reality of living with the enemy. Their everyday forms of resistance helped them maintain dignity in the face of foreign imperialism.
References |
Related Articles |
Metrics
|
8 articles
|