GSSC Seminar Series

21 July 2026 

 

Yi, Muslim and Han Chinese Along the Halahe: Glimpses of Prosperous and Violent Pasts

Dr. Nanny Kim, University of Cologne

12:00-13:00 

 

A presentation on recent fieldwork on a mining area in highland northwest Guizhou in southwest China. The presentation discusses aspects of social structure and ethnic identities and representations encountered in oral histories, remains, and present-day life. The talk is an attempt of reflecting on the production and destruction of local knowledge and of knowing about local areas.

Dr. Nanny Kim is a China historian interested in mines and networks in the mountain zone of southwest China and Southeast Asia. She employs a fieldwork-based approach that combines traditional historical records with oral histories and remains and uses methodologies of history, geography and ethnology. Research that mainly focused on silver mining in Yunnan was made possible by two DFG projects in collaboration with Yang Yuda (Fudan University) and other colleagues in China and Vietnam (2015-2018 and 2019-2022) and a membership with the Institute for Advanced Study (2023-2024). Her project at GSSC aims at realizing a systematic integration of networks of mobility and case studies on transformations of mining communities during and after mineral exploitation.