Frontier Fieldwork

The centre may hold, but borders can fray. In the early twentieth century, the threat of imperialism loomed large in the Sino-Tibetan borderlands, bringing China’s frontier to the heart of political debates about the future of the country.

Frontier Fieldwork explores the work of social scientists, agriculturists, photographers, students, and missionaries who took to the field on China’s southwestern border at a time when foreign political powers were contesting China’s claims over its frontiers. While other nations extended their authority using military power, China employed fieldworkers to undertake a nation-building exercise by uniting a disparate, multi-ethnic population at the periphery of the country. Their presence there raised crucial questions about the meaning of China at a time when border areas were far removed from the minds of the vast majority of the population. Ultimately, the fieldworkers saw themselves as a vanguard force, foreshadowing the policies of social development and intervention that would be pursued during the Cold War decades later.

Drawing on both Chinese and Western materials, Andres Rodriguez exposes the transformative power of the fieldworkers’ efforts, which went beyond creating new forms of political action and identity. His incisive study demonstrates that despite a range of agendas, fieldworkers converged to issue a rallying call that placed China’s margins at the centre of its nation-making process and race to modernity.