A Trickle of Authority: The Arid Conditions of Empire in Eighteenth-Century Xinjiang. (1st May 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Bello, David Anthony
• Is Part Of: Environment and history. Volume 29:Number 2(2023)
• Page Start: 285
• Page End: 308
• Publication Date: 2023-05-01
• Subjects: Human ecology -- History -- Periodicals; Nature -- Effect of human beings on -- Periodicals; Human beings -- Effect of environment on -- Periodicals; 304.209
• DOI: 10.3197/096734021X16076828553610
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0967-3407

Abstract

This article will explore some of the Qing Empire's primary adaptations, mainly pastoral and agricultural, to the arid environments of southern, eastern and northern Xinjiang - that is, the Tarim, Hami-Turfan and Zünghar basins respectively. It first examines the region's arid climate and its constraining implications for, first, agriculture as the empire's standard form of territorial incorporation in the south and east; and, second, pastoralism and agro-pastoralism in the north. These relations were not purely social, but were conditioned within both human and natural parameters. Xinjiang's general aridity informed Qing interactions with the territory's diverse peoples, which presented both cultural and ecological - that is, environmental - obstacles and opportunities.