Luca Gabbiani 陸康
Framing a Historical Object through Local Governmental Archives: The Case of Urban Real Estate in Eighteenth Century China
This contribution will be centered on the use of local government archives to shed light on the various ways the issue of urban real estate can be approached in Chinese cities during the Qing dynasty. Three examples will be developed. The first will be devoted to real estate as commodity in the Qing capital, Beijing, in the eighteenth century. Through the analysis of a criminal case record, it will shed some light on the role played by such assets in the city’s economy. The second will turn to the issue of property. Drawing on an inheritance dispute filed at the Ba County’s magistrate office and regarding an asset located in Chongqing, it will highlight the way ownership claims were construed by local authorities from the angle of legal practice. The last example will take on the case of Macao. Using local archival documents written in Chinese, it will seek to show the extent to which notions and practices related to urban real estate underwent of form of cultural crossbreeding in time in the Sino-Portuguese trade emporium.