Yuan Tian

My dissertation reexamines the role of extraterritoriality in Chinese history by locating the practice at an inner frontier: Sichuan. Shifting the spatial focus to a frontier society, this study uncovers historical agents, such as peasants and hinterland officials, who were unimportant or invisible in previous studies of extraterritoriality. The dissertation seeks to broaden the analytical framework of extraterritoriality, by focusing not only on the institution itself, but also its spillover effect on the broader society. This project addresses how extraterritoriality was practiced in local society at the inner frontier, and how discussions regarding extraterritoriality carried out at the central, the peripheral, the global and the domestic levels interact with one another in different ways.