Re-inventing local tradition: Politics, culture, and identity in early 19th century Suzhou (China)

The devolution of power to local elites in the nineteenth century China is commonly traced to the period of the Taiping Rebellion in the mid-nineteenth century. My dissertation reveals, however, that the transition from the Qianlong to the Jiaqing reign brought about an intensification of local elite participation in local public affairs and a strong assertion of local identity which was a cultural representation of such an elite social activism. I explore the transformation that the Chinese state went through socially and culturally from the 18th to the early 19th century, when China was experiencing dramatic population increase, without a proportionate expansion of the state apparatus, and serious deficit in the state revenue system. I concentrate on the case study of Suzhou, a southern city known for its strong elite power and sense of identity.; In the first chapter, I trace the diminishing roles of the state and the intensified southern elite participation in the early 19th century in various public activities such as water conservancy, bridge building, benevolent societies, and helping poor village and lineage members.; In the chapter that follows, I analyze the state endorsement of local worthies and show that more southern worthies were authorized by the state to be worshipped in the local shrines in the early 19th century than in the 18th, when the state tried to balance the number of worthies in the north and south. In this process, return of the ritual practice of exhibiting portraits of worthies, which had been prohibited during the 18th, illustrates the relaxed grasp of the state on local culture in the early 19th century.; In the third chapter, I emphasize the renewed assertion of local identity in the early 19th century Suzhou as shown in increased numbers of various local histories. While the 18th century state curtailed the writing of histories by private individuals, and criticized private local histories for their parochialism and pettiness, early 19th century Suzhou saw the efflorescence of these private local histories that strongly reasserted local identity on various levels.; In the last chapter, I turn to discourse analysis centering on a local hero of Suzhou, Zhang Shicheng. Zhang, though received favorably by Suzhou people, was vilified in the subsequent official histories. It was only in the early 19th century that Suzhou scholars embarked on a project to rehabilitate him and restore him to an honorable position in history.