Metal Mining in Early Modern and Modern Transformations of Highland Southwest China and Southeast Asia
Principal Investigator: Dr Nanny Kim, Global South Studies Center (GSSC), University of Cologne
Affiliation with Prof Dr Susanne Brandtstädter (Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology), University of Cologne
Subject
The exploitation of metal resources has played an important role in transformations in the mountain zone of southwest China and Southeast Asia. All cultures in this multi-ethnic region practiced mining and metallurgy. While the technological complex had a history of over three millennia, large-scale mining was a Chinese activity that is first documented in the 14th century, expanded through the early modern period and became dominant in the 18th century. This project explores Chinese mines and networks in the region, mainly but not exclusively focussing on silver exploitation.
Methodology
To this aim, it combines approaches of history, geography and anthropology.
Hypothesis
Mining played a key role in Chinese migration into the region as well as in the formation of networks of transport and trade.
In other words, historical and geographic transformations in the highland region were driven by resource hunger and demands of markets in the distant interior of the Chinese empire. Likening this expansion of the Chinese sphere of settlement and influence to colonialism is suggestive. The development of the mining sector, however, occurred despite imperial laws that banned mining and outlawed migration into the borderlands of the empire. As an illicit or grey zone activity, mining is strongly under-reported in Chinese written records, which constitute the bulk of late imperial sources on the topic. This bias in the records led to an underestimation of its role in the region’s history in traditional history.
Research plan
This project intends to test the hypothesis by two approaches: (1) through researching regional pattern by means of historical geography and (2) in field-based case studies of select historic mining communities.
(1) A WebMapServer of major mines and transport routes that mainly uses data developed in previous research. This tool will facilitate engagement with other research on the region, as well as testing the hypothesis by factoring in data expected to contradict it, such as land use, irrigation/drainage systems, trade flows, or ritual landscapes.
(2) Field studies on early modern mining landscapes and their modern transformations. Building on previous field studies on roughly 100 sites - mostly in Yunnan, new research will focus on geographically small areas in north Vietnam, north Thailand and China. Results are expected to provide insights into coupled human–nature systems that will contribute to the understanding of resilience and fragility of non-agricultural communities in borderland environments, as well as different paths of resource use and their local and regional implications.
Background and partners
This project is based on a decade of collaborative research. Research began as a limited fieldwork-based exploration of important silver mines in the borderlands of late imperial China initiated by Yang Yuda. We began working on the topic from 2011 and were able to carry out focussed research in a 3-year DFG project from 2015, which focussed on major mines, reconstructing their scale of historic exploitation and modelling geographic contexts of migration and environmental degradation. The project funded my work, geographic modelling by Maike Nowatzki and support with manuscripts by Rebecca O’Sullivan. With new collaborations with Vũ Đường Luân (Vietnam National University), Li Xiaocen (Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology), Liu Peifeng (Jingdezhen Ceramics University) and Shen Kaxiang (Yunnan University) the focus expanded to other metals and more specific perspectives on local societies as well as larger over-regional contexts. A second DFG project from 2019 with a partner-project by Li Xiaocen and Liu Peifeng at Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology took off for a hopeful start for intensive fieldwork that ended with the Covid pandemic. Through the second half of the project, research concentrated on historical geography and regional studies, drawing on earlier work on transport networks and sites of historic mining. In addition, issues relating to Ming and Qing government records and structures in the administration led to a structural analysis of the systematic underrepresentation of mining in official representations, including legal and regulatory frameworks, that was kept carefully separate from a wide zone of “customary” arrangements at the level of local and provincial governments. A membership with the Institute for Advanced Study permitted developing my work on this topic during the academic year 2023-2024.
The current project thus builds on relatively advanced groundwork. This consists of thorough analysis of the limited body of written records in Chinese and Western languages, short-term fieldwork to collect oral histories and survey remains at altogether roughly 100 sites of historic mining in Yunnan, Sichuan and northern Vietnam, with a main emphasis on silver, but also covering sites of copper, iron, zinc, tin and cobalt mining, and GIS data that I have assembled on the main historic roads, several hundred mining sites, and for certain areas on land use and vegetation.
Note on the team and collaboration partners:
The two DFG projects exclusively funded my work and for parts of the period graduate and postdoc research assistants. Rebecca O’Sullivan and Maike Nowatzki provided much appreciated contributions in geographic analysis, archaeological enthusiasm, formatting and revision. Collaboration with Yang Yuda, Vũ Đường Luân, Li Xiaocen, Liu Peifeng and Shen Kaxiang consisted in joint fieldwork with all findings freely shared by all participants as well as mutual help with obtaining primary sources. We jointly published research which we carried out together or which is based on ideas that we developed in discussions.
The present project will continue existing collaborations with Yang Yuda, Vũ Đường Luân, Liu Peifeng and Shen Kaxiang and develop exchange and collaborative work with Panitda Sayyarod and Oliver Tappe.