Local Uses of Geographical Knowledge in Imperial China

Abstract

Geographical knowledge traditionally viewed as a monolithic system constructed for ordering the political space of the state. Yet what did historical actors in imperial China do with geographical knowledge produced at the local level? While acknowledging this political function of geographical knowledge, the six contributions of this special issue approach localities as places of knowledge production. They highlight the shifting values that those actors assigned to localities and proble-matize what locality meant in the history of imperial China: Was the imperial capital a locality? Were there localities within localities? Did mountains and religious sites function as localities? And can localities be treated as historical records? Focusing on localities allows us to move beyond the somewhat abstract and uniform notion of geographical knowledge and to consider the variety and ductility of the geographical cultures that were produced and circulated in the Sinitic sphere, across time and space, but in locally specific contexts. 1 The six authors in this special issue examine a broad spectrum of literary genres transcending traditional boundaries and underscore the importance of paratextual and material elements. To understand what informs the divergent uses of geographical knowledge, local and central factors must be juxtaposed. Whether local or imperially centered, these factors are multifaceted, encompassing disparate literary genres and reading practices. They also reveal practical processes of making, managing, and understanding the meaning of locality. They show a complex set of references from various genres, places, and times that historical actors used to create and recreate idiosyncratic ways of describing and representing the environs. The authors focus on different genres and periods, and together they compellingly complicate our understanding of the various genres they analyze –