Decluttering

Drawing on the example of the Imperial Household Department, this essay offers a reflection on the cultural practices of Qing governance. It argues that a reading of the Qing state’s mobilization of material resources through an economic lens reveals only part of the story. The classification of objects and the underlying material epistemologies did not merely represent a concern with calculating monetary value; they also served as an ordering mechanism through which the ruling elite visualized the subjects of the empire. The examples provided in the essay illustrate some of the ways in which the Qing state produced structural resources (such as systems of classification) to manage its imperial and colonial expansion.