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This book analyzes the emergence of ethnic consciousness among
Hakka-speaking people in late imperial China in the context of
their migrations in search of economic opportunities. It poses
three central questions: What determined the temporal and
geographic pattern of Hakka and Pengmin (a largely Hakka-speaking
people) migration in this era? In what circumstances and over what
issues did ethnic conflict emerge? How did the Chinese state react
to the phenomena of migration and ethnic conflict?
To answer these questions, a model is developed that brings
together three ideas and types of data: the analytical concept of
ethnicity; the history of internal migration in China; and the
regional systems methodology of G. William Skinner, which has been
both a breakthrough in the study of Chinese society and an approach
of broad social-scientific application. Professor Skinner has also
prepared eleven maps for the book, as well as the Introduction.
The book is in two parts. Part I describes the spread of the Hakka
throughout the Lingnan, and to a lesser extent the Southeast Coast,
macroregions. It argues that this migration occurred because of
upswings in the macroregional economies in the sixteenth century
and in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. As long
as economic opportunities were expanding, ethnic antagonisms were
held in check. When, however, the macroregional economies declined,
in the mid-seventeenth and late eighteenth centuries, ethnic
tensions came to the fore, notably in the Hakka-Punti War of the
mid-nineteenth century.
Part II broadens the analysis to take into account other
Hakka-speaking people, notably the Pengmin, or "shack people." When
new economic opportunities opened up, the Pengmin moved to the
peripheries of most of the macroregions along the Yangzi valley,
particularly to the highland areas close to major trading centers.
As with the Hakka, ethnic antagonisms, albeit differently
expressed, emerged as a result of a declining economy and increased
competition for limited resources in the main areas of Pengmin
concentration.
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