Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TRACMI (Trading Chinese Migrants: Networks of Human Trafficking in Treaty-Port China (1830-1930s))
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-10-01 al 2024-09-30
In the past three decades, historians of global Chinese indentured migration have done an excellent job of portraying the trade in Chinese indentured labourers to Latin America, their experiences and the international effort to halt their trafficking. Surprisingly, even though the international trafficking of Chinese children, women and male labourers were run by the same networks of human traffickers, the victims of the Chinese indenture are still perceived as eminently male and adult. Furthermore, the profits these trades generated and their beneficiaries remain understudied. To untangle the interconnection between these trades, this project focuses on the role of intermediaries such as Chinese local officials, consular officers, immigration agents, companies, brokers, ship owners, and captains in the south China coast and overseas, as well as on the international strategies which the nations involved implemented through legislation to promote or obstruct these trades. The project plays special attention to those ports with the strongest migratory flow, namely Xiamen (also called Amoy), Macau, Shantou (or Swatow), Ningbo, Hong Kong, and Guangzhou (Canton), from the earliest indications of international female trafficking in the 1830s, to the abolitionist ordinances issued in various Southeast Asian settlements in the 1930s. A comparative study of diverse forms of trafficking through the exhaustive collection, processing, and analysis of ground-data further reveals and challenges the discursive mechanisms which produce partial depictions of Chinese human trade. Ultimately, this research sheds new light on the extent to which China’s place in global dynamics in the nineteenth century was key to the configuration and decline of the colonial world, as it establishes new links between the circulation of Chinese population and the economic and political crisis which resulted in the colonial decline.
This project’s work has aimed towards the following research objectives (RO):
RO1. To unveil how the private sector and colonial states used legal, economic and political mechanisms to either promote or obstruct the commodification of Chinese labour and forced mobility.
RO2. To shed light on how transnational human-trafficking networks operated, and how they determined the circulation and exploitation of Chinese victims of human trade, using the primary sources gathered.
RO3. To problematize current conceptualizations about the coolie trade, slavery, and Chinese emigration by examining the interconnection and parallelisms between the trafficking of infants, women, and male labourers.
RO4. To uncover and make available unpublished primary sources regarding Sino-foreign relations, the organization of the trade of Chinese workers, women, and children in China, and their exploitation overseas.
This project’s work has aimed towards the following research objectives (RO):
RO1. To unveil how the private sector and colonial states used legal, economic and political mechanisms to either promote or obstruct the commodification of Chinese labour and forced mobility.
RO2. To shed light on how transnational human-trafficking networks operated, and how they determined the circulation and exploitation of Chinese victims of human trade, using the primary sources gathered.
RO3. To problematize current conceptualizations about the coolie trade, slavery, and Chinese emigration by examining the interconnection and parallelisms between the trafficking of infants, women, and male labourers.
RO4. To uncover and make available unpublished primary sources regarding Sino-foreign relations, the organization of the trade of Chinese workers, women, and children in China, and their exploitation overseas.
During the grant period, the researcher has performed the following activities and achievements:
- Studied the literature on Chinese indentured labour and human trafficking, and on invisibilization in labour history
- Undertook international and multilingual archival research in Spain, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany
- Received training in the use of digital tools
- Organized an international conference to enhance the transfer of knowledge to the host and secondment institutions and successfully obtained third-party funding to fund the conference.
- Directed and edited an open access edited volume on invisibilization in Asian modern history
- Applied to more than 8 academic positions and major grants, and was shortlisted to a tenure track post in the French National Center for Scientific Research
- Successfully obtained a Barbro Klein Fellowship at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study
- Published a research article at a peer reviewed top journal in her field
- Submitted a book proposal for a monograph to a highly prestigious academic press. The researcher will develop the book in the incoming months
- Organized two double panels at the Fourteenth and Fifteenth editions of the European Social Science History Conference
- Presented research results at more than 15 international academic venues and institutions
- To transfer knowledge to graduate and undergraduate students, the researcher designed and taught the course International labour emigration and human trafficking in treaty-port China (19th-20th century)
- Widened her network and joined various international networks and research groups
- Received language training to improve her research and communication abilities in French and Chinese
- Studied the literature on Chinese indentured labour and human trafficking, and on invisibilization in labour history
- Undertook international and multilingual archival research in Spain, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany
- Received training in the use of digital tools
- Organized an international conference to enhance the transfer of knowledge to the host and secondment institutions and successfully obtained third-party funding to fund the conference.
- Directed and edited an open access edited volume on invisibilization in Asian modern history
- Applied to more than 8 academic positions and major grants, and was shortlisted to a tenure track post in the French National Center for Scientific Research
- Successfully obtained a Barbro Klein Fellowship at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study
- Published a research article at a peer reviewed top journal in her field
- Submitted a book proposal for a monograph to a highly prestigious academic press. The researcher will develop the book in the incoming months
- Organized two double panels at the Fourteenth and Fifteenth editions of the European Social Science History Conference
- Presented research results at more than 15 international academic venues and institutions
- To transfer knowledge to graduate and undergraduate students, the researcher designed and taught the course International labour emigration and human trafficking in treaty-port China (19th-20th century)
- Widened her network and joined various international networks and research groups
- Received language training to improve her research and communication abilities in French and Chinese
This project makes a relevant contribution to current debates in global labour history and, particularly, to studies on Chinese indentured migration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The project especially intervenes in questions regarding the temporality of the trade – particularly regarding the “abolition” of the trafficking of Chinese migrants to Cuba and of indenture – and brings in underexplored questions regarding gender and age in the composition of the victims of the trade. Moreover, the developed a novel methodology regarding intentional invisibilization in history and historiography, based on case studies regarding Asian dependency and bondage. These results are available in a journal article and an edited volume, and will be further presented in a monograph currently in progress, and are the base for three more publications – a monograph, an edited volume and a book chapter, which will be undertaken after the grant.
Aside from developing these theories, arguments and interventions in various publications, the project has also focused on the gathering of data; on setting up a preliminary data collection; and presenting the preliminary results via lectures, seminars, talks and conferences, which allowed the researcher to obtain feedback. As for communication and outreach, the researcher was interviewed for the New Books Network (incoming), will also feature in the podcast SCAS talks, is planning to disseminate the results in a newspaper article, and has become an active participant of two international networks dedicated to the study of labour history and of Chinese migration.
Aside from developing these theories, arguments and interventions in various publications, the project has also focused on the gathering of data; on setting up a preliminary data collection; and presenting the preliminary results via lectures, seminars, talks and conferences, which allowed the researcher to obtain feedback. As for communication and outreach, the researcher was interviewed for the New Books Network (incoming), will also feature in the podcast SCAS talks, is planning to disseminate the results in a newspaper article, and has become an active participant of two international networks dedicated to the study of labour history and of Chinese migration.