Upriver and Overseas: Revisiting Boundaries in the Study of Nineteenth-Century Cantonese Migration

Abstract

Inspired by one of the themes of the “Boundaries and Bonds: An International Conference on Chinese Diaspora,” hosted by Nanyang Technological University in October 2021, this article explores conceptual boundaries in the study of Cantonese migration during the pivotal nineteenth century. Based on research on internal Cantonese migration along the West River, but set in a comparative framework of overseas Cantonese migration, I consider in turn natural or topographical barriers, political boundaries, regional and class discrepancies, and gendered imaginings and practices of migration. Focusing on villages and townships along the West River, I show that emigrant communities with prior access to a long, navigable, and commercially important river readily adapted to new experiences of overseas migration after the mid-nineteenth century.