Conference report: BICC Chinese Urban Studies Network Workshop: New Directions in
Chinese Urban Studies, Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester, Monday 17
December 2012
This was the first in a series of workshops that will explore the state of Chinese urban history,
identify recent developments in the field and investigate new approaches and directions. In her
opening remarks, Isabella Jackson raised some possible points for wider discussion, including the
wealth of research on Shanghai compared with other cities in China, the possibility of linking urban
history with the rapidly growing literature on Chinese urban studies, and whether the field is merely
engaging with debates that have occupied scholars of the West for years or has a new perspective to
offer.
Two general papers that reviewed the state of the field then followed. Christian Henriot
discussed the continuing emphasis on Shanghai, and the problems of inserting this into a broader
framework of Chinese urban history. He highlighted the problems of language and archival access
that makes it likely Shanghai will continue to be a focus of study for some time to come. He then
turned to the role of digital technologies, such as databases, and online archives, and the need to
create platforms for sharing knowledge and data. He described ongoing projects, including the
collection of advertisements from Shanghai newspapers, which will be made available to scholars,
and a new collaborative venture that will investigate how war made Shanghai. Turning to urban
studies, Hyun Shin discussed its Eurocentric focus, which is largely derived from the global cities
literature. Within China, this means that there is a concentration on large coastal cities, most notably
Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Moreover, the role of the party-state remains under-explored,
while ideas surrounding the right to the city, and the role of marginalized groups such as migrants also
need more research.
The workshop then moved on to consider case studies from the first half of the twentieth
century. Wang Min introduced her current research on the treaty port of Shanghai. Through an
analysis of the Feetham report, she highlighted the diplomatic interplay between the British state, the
Shanghai Municipal Council and the Chinese government at a crucial time of upheaval and crisis that
threatened the International Settlement during the 1920s. The response of the Chinese and British
governments and community illustrate how the history of Shanghai concerns the city itself, but also
incorporates wider narratives of Chinese nationalism and the relationship of China to Western
Imperialism. Moving one hundred miles inland, Toby Lincoln turned to the city of Wuxi, and the
interaction of local elites with the emerging modernizing state. He argued that attempts to construct
municipal autonomy in the early 1920s illustrate how the state was perceived as an important source
of power. However, the fact that during the Jiangsu-Zhejiang war it was social organizations that were
responsible for urban management points to the weakness of the state in this period. State-society
interactions were also important to Chris Courtney’s paper on the 1931 Wuhan flood. He argued that
the construction of competing narratives surrounding the relationship between the destruction of the
Dragon King Temple and the causes of the flood illustrate that while local opinion may have sought
spiritual reasons for the disaster, this was utilized by local elites to disrupt further state plans for urban
development.
The final panel moved the discussion into the early PRC period, and Jon Howlett showed how
the development of Communism in the city was often gradual and contingent. Through an analysis of
changing street names in Shanghai, he illustrated that some areas of the city were almost forgotten by
the party, and that requests from residents in the late 50s and 60s forced the change, rather than
central or even municipal directives. The difficulties of building the revolution in the city were
similarly the focus of Karl Gerth’s paper on consumption in Shanghai. Advertising was common
throughout the early 1950s, and this points to the continuation of an urban culture that is more often
associated with the pre-war period. Moreover, the notion of socialist shopping illustrates some of the
ideological compromises that had to be made by the CCP.
The final roundtable returned to some of the key themes of Chinese urban history. Shanghai
and its position within the field dominated the discussion, which also touched on whether the study of
the city in China is emerging as a sub-discipline within its own right. Participants also commented on
the fact that many common themes exist in urban history and urban studies, and that as the Maoist
period and the Cultural Revolution become history, perhaps it is time to join the two fields together in
a more coherent way.
Emily Whewall and Toby Lincoln