Imperial Borderlands

Maps and Territory-Building in the Northern Indochinese Peninsula (1885-1914)
Erscheinungsjahr 2021
ISBN: 978-90-04-45621-1
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 1, 326 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 757 g

Reihe: Mapping the Past

This book presents a connected history of South-East Asian borderlands, drawing on late nineteenth-century British and French geographical policies and practice. It focuses on the ‘scramble’ in Asia, when, in 1885, the British Raj incorporated Upper Burma and the French created a Protectorate in Annam-Tonkin, the Northern part of present-day Vietnam. Fought over by the imperial states and neighbouring nations, the frontier zones were fashioned and represented not only by the two European powers, but also by the Chinese Empire, the Kingdom of Siam, and the local populations. The counterpoint between the discourses produced and the cartographical practices on the ground, in the longue durée, reveals the interacting processes of territory-building in all their unpredictability.

This book is the updated version of the author’s Aux confins des empires. Cartes et constructions territoriales dans le nord de la péninsule indochinoise (1885–1914) (Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2018). It is translated by Saskia Brown, an experienced academic translator from French in the humanities and social sciences.

Autoren/Hrsg.

de Rugy, Marie

Weitere Mitwirkende

Brown, Saskia

Fachgebiete

• Geowissenschaften Geographie | Raumplanung Humangeographie Historische Geographie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein Historische Geographie, Landkarten & Atlanten

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Foreword

Acknowledgements

List of Figures

Acronyms and Transcription Conventions

Introduction

1 A History of Maps and Territories

2 Confines, Margins, Frontiers: Space as an Object

3 Connecting Empires

1 Connected Histories of Exploration

1 A Well-Stocked Colonial Library with a Long History

2 Geographies of Exploration and Travel Narratives before 1885

3 Colonial Knowledge and Empire-Building after 1885

2 Colonial Geographical Departments and Large-Scale Map-Making Programmes

1 The Creation of Colonial Geographical Departments

2 Systematic Mapping of the Whole Territory: A Qualitative Advance?

3 Meeting the Challenge of Limited Staff, Budgets and Material

3 Geographical Institutions: Collaboration, Competition, and Confrontation

1 Rivalry and Cooperation between Map-Makers

2 The Circulation and Uses of Maps

4 Triangulation “from the Mountains to the Sea

1 Tough Working Conditions and a Dangerous Terrain

2 Topographers and Geodetic Surveyors in Action: Adapting Standard Practice

3 Human Settlements and Dwellings: A Map-Maker’s Headache

5 Consulting the Local Population

1 The Role of Intelligence: Local Information Sources during the Conquest

2 Place Names, the Impossible Task

6 Using Asian Maps: Borrowings and Reworkings

1 Checking Historical Borders

7 Colonial Roads and Territorial Reconfigurations

1 Travelling across the Territory

2 The Margins Reconfigured by Roads

8 Locating, Demarcating, and Crossing the Border

1 Theoretical Variations

2 Boundary Marking in Practice

3 Border Controls and Infringements

9 Logics of Rule and Territorial Anomalies

1 The Specific Status of the Frontier Provinces

2 Unstable Territorial Divisions

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Marie de Rugy is a Lecturer in Modern History at Sciences Po Strasbourg. She has published one monograph and several articles on cartography and empire in South-East Asia.