Nationalism, history and state building: Anti-drug crusades in China, 1924-1997

This dissertation studies anti-drug crusades in China from 1924 to 1997 through a combination of archival research, participant observation, and discourse analysis. I have two goals for this study: a better anthropological study on drugs, in general, and a better study of anti-drug campaigns in modern China, in particular. My approach is to abandon the organismic concept of culture and the subculture model, and to examine drugs in historical contexts and through interactions between different social institutions and groups. By doing so, this study hopes (1) to construct a cultural history of the campaigns, (2) to explore how historical narratives of the Opium Wars and nationalism are used to legitimize the crusades, and (3) to highlight how these anti-drug crusades became a means of state building under different historical circumstances.;This study focuses on issues of nationalism, public sphere, and state building, as well as their relationship to the anti-drug campaigns in modern China. The study points out that, in modern China, the drug problem is viewed not only as a kind of social deviance but has been an explosive issue closely related to the history of the Opium Wars, to the relationship between China and Western countries, to the definition of national identity, and to the creation of a new national culture. Nationalism thus has played an important role in all anti-drug crusades. Nationalism plays its role in the making of a mainstream anti-drug discourse in modern China, in the interpretations of the history of the Opium Wars, in the mobilization of the social elite and general public in the cause of drug suppression, and in the linking of drugs to the survival of the Chinese nation when China faces foreign aggression and threat. Both the Nationalists and the Communists have used nationalism to mobilize the people's participation by exploring its multiple meanings. In short, nationalism provides motivation, legitimacy, and emotional charge for the Chinese to take an anti-drug stance.;This study also examines the relationship between state and society, especially how the society uses the drug issue to create a public sphere in which it exercises its influences, and how the state tries to use anti-drug crusades to consolidate its power. Although the private sector has played a big role in the anti-drug movements, as shown by the anti-drug activities of the National Anti-Opium Association during the mid-1920s to mid-1930s, its influence lessened with the increasing efforts at state building by the Nationalists and is virtually non-existent after 1949 under the Communists rule. The anti-drug crusades have been used by both the Nationalists and the Communists to build, consolidate, and demonstrate state hegemony. The mass campaigns, social mobilization, and use of state violence have been the main ways in which the state has carried out anti-drug crusades. Modern Chinese nationalism and the needs of state building have shaped the ways in which these campaigns have been conducted.