Postcolonial Theory in East Asian Studies

Abstract

Julia C. Schneider analyses how the concept of colonialism has been used to refer to and analyse the conquest history of the Qing empire in recent decades. She questions whether colonialism, being normativised by an experience that originally assumed a European “centre” that conquers, subjects, and exploits a non-European “periphery”, can be meaningfully transplanted to a non-European historical context, particularly to the transcultural ruling elite of the Qing empire and the people conquered by the Qing. She demonstrates the problems that derive from such a conceptual transfer by examining Qing conquests under the lens of postcolonial theory and of transcultural/transnational understandings of Qing identity.