Wading into the stream of Chinese life: the life and missionary career of Roderick Scott in China, 1916–1949

The legacy of Western Christian missionaries to China during the early twentieth century has often been debated by historians, being judged both positively and negatively. Yet, the truth is usually more complex. In examining the lives of Roderick and Agnes Scott, two American missionaries and educators who were active in Fuzhou from 1916–1949, the historian can see how the interaction between Western Christianity and Chinese culture played out in at least one instance, and observe how one American couple developed a growing affinity for the Chinese people and their culture, which gradually led them to the role of interpreters and advocates on behalf of the Chinese during and following World War II. Yet the papers of Roderick Scott also provide examples of the complex relationship between the Chinese and resident foreigners during these years. They document the rise of anti-foreigner sentiment in the 1920s, the debates over the Sinicization of western institutions in the years that followed, the solidarity displayed by foreign missionaries toward the Chinese during the years of the Sino–Japanese War, and their great reluctance to leave China following the revolution of 1949.     

Foucault, fields of governability, and the population–family–economy nexus in China

It was only in the early twentieth century that China discovered that it had a population, at least if a population is understood not as a simple number of people but instead in terms of such features as variable levels of health, birth and death rates, age, sex, dependency ratios, and so on—as an object with a distinct rationality and intrinsic dynamics that can be made the target of a specific kind of direct intervention. In 1900, such a developmentalist conception of the population simply did not exist in China; by the 1930s, it pervaded the entire social and political field from top to bottom. Through a reading of a series of foundational texts in population and family reformism in China, this paper argues that this birth of the Chinese population occurred as a result of a general transformation of practices of governing, one that necessarily also involved a reconceptualization of the family and a new logic of overall social rationalization; in short, the isolation of a population–family–economy nexus as a central field of modern governing. This process is captured by elaborating and extending Foucault's studies of the historical emergence of apparatuses (dispositifs) into a notion of fields of governability. Finally, this paper argues that the one-child policy, launched in the late 1970s, should be understood not in isolation from the imposition of the “family-responsibility system” in agriculture and market reforms in exactly that period, but as part—mutatis mutandis—of a return to a form of governing that was developed in the first half of the twentieth century.     

Anzac for Sale: Consumer Culture,Regulation and the Shaping of a Legend, 1915–21

After the Gallipoli landing on 25 April 1915, the word Anzac began to appear with increasing frequency to brand a range of Australian consumer products, and many traders applied to change the name of their businesses to Anzac. On 25 May 1916, the federal government issued War Precautions Regulations prohibiting the unauthorised use of the word Anzac ‘in any trade, business, calling or profession’. This article explores applications to use the word Anzac for commercial purposes between 1915 and 1921 to argue that consumer culture became a battleground where individuals and groups competed to assert ownership over the word and the social currency it represented.     

Development of geography in higher education in China: departments,curricula, and faculty, 1904–1949

By extracting information from various original materials and using geography departments, curricula, and faculty as indicators, this paper contributes to the discussion of the development of geography in higher education in China from 1904 to 1949. Four mutual connections are outlined. First, the development of geography in higher education is inextricably linked to social and political changes. Second, geography in higher education during the period concerned progressed in fits and starts, which affected its distribution. Third, geography departments were split into two categories according to the type of higher educational institution, which created differences in the tasks, curricula, and faculty of these departments. Fourth, faculty were trained in both domestic and foreign universities, and Western universities made an obvious contribution to the growth of qualified academic faculty. Simultaneously, universities where qualified academic faculty were trained were centralized both in domestic and foreign aspects. The special role of geographers returning from overseas study, the particularity of geography in higher education in China, and the connection between Chinese and foreign geography are also discussed in terms of geography departments, curricula, and faculty.     

Canadian and American Treatment of the Nikkei, 1890–1949: A Comparison

For many Japanese people, the 49th parallel was only a line on a map, yet there were differences for the Japanese residents in the United States and Canada. The two nations had different concepts of citizenship and constitutions but, in what has been called “hemispheric orientalism,” prejudice knew no border. Both countries severely restricted immigration from Japan. In the United States, immigrants, the Issei, were aliens ineligible for citizenship. Thus, states could deny their access to commercial fishing and the right to own or lease land. Because the American constitution bestows full citizenship on the native-born, their American-born children, the Nisei, could vote and acquire land, but experienced discrimination especially in employment. On paper, the Canadian Issei had more civil rights since they could become naturalized but this provided few advantages apart from the rights to own land and to fish commercially. The Canadian Nisei had no more rights than their parents. In British Columbia, where 95 percent of the Japanese lived, they could not vote and provincial laws and customs denied their access to many occupations. During the Second World War, both nations required all the Nikkei to leave the Pacific Coast, incarcerated some, severely restricted the mobility of others, and proposed to “repatriate” many of them to Japan. Drawing mainly on the previous scholarship which has examined specific themes, time periods, or comparisons, this article offers an overview of how between the 1890s and the 1940s the effects of prejudice varied more in detail and timing than in principle even though formal consultation between the two nations was sporadic.