Remeasuring China. The Local and Translocal Dimensions of the Chinese Weights and Measures Reforms (ca. 1927-1937)

本研究项目的重点是民国时期，特别是南京十年（1927-1937）中国度量衡改革的多方面。在此期间，中国政府试图在全国范围内引入公制。然而，由于两个主要原因，这一举措并不等于从一种衡量系统到另一种衡量系统的明确改变。首先，中国度量衡的现存形式极其多样化，在清朝时就已经没有一个统一的体系。其次，公制并不是唯一影响中国度量衡的外来因素。相反，在中国城市的外国租界和大型国际公司的范围内，国际标准（英国、日本和其他）的多元化尤为明显。 因此，度量衡改革是在一个复杂的环境中进行的，该环境存在着区域分裂和国际度量衡标准相互竞争的问题。通过四个精心挑选的案例研究，本项目将探讨这一时期巨大的社会变革的各个方面。这两项研究以政府（机构和个人）为出发点，但同时也考虑了中央政府的政策对中国社会不同阶层的影响。剩下的两个案例研究关注的是其他群体，最明显的是知识分子和小规模商人，他们展示了他们如何不仅是自上而下政策的被动接受者，而且是变革过程中的积极推动者，与更广泛的变革模式谈判他们自己的生活世界和利益。在所有案例研究中，国际大国的多方面作用将在适当的时候被放在突出位置。中国的区域多样性也是如此。该项目将产生一本书长的研究报告。该项目宣布的第二个目标是准备一个在线收藏，收集有关二十世纪前几十年中国复杂计量历史的丰富多样的主要来源和次要文献（均采用多种语言）。这两个步骤都很重要，因为20世纪中国历史的这一方面还没有成为历史研究的主题。这是一个重大的差距，因为中国的改革开放为民国时期中国的多层次转型提供了许多重要的见解-这些转型不仅促进了同质性，而且也促进了高度的竞争，不平等和不平等。

This research project focuses on the multifaceted dimensions of the Chinese weights and measures reforms during the Republican Period, particularly the Nanjing Decade (1927-1937). During that time period, the Chinese government sought to introduce the metric system all over the country. Yet for two main reasons, this initiative did not amount to a clear-cut change from one measurement system to another. Firstly, the preexisting landscape of Chinese weights and measures was extremely diversified, and already under the Qing Dynasty there had not been a unified system. Secondly, the metric system was not the only foreign influence on the realm of Chinese weights and measurements. Rather, there was a pluralism of international standards (British, Japanese, and other) that was particularly visible in the foreign concessions of Chinese cities and within the orbit of large international companies. The metric reforms were thus taking place in a complex environment of regional fragmentation and competing international standards for weights and measures. Through four carefully selected case studies, this project will explore various facets of the great metrological transformations of this time period. Two studies take the government (institutions and persons) as their points of departure, yet at the same time they also consider the ramifications of the central administration’s policies for different segments of Chinese society. The remaining two case studies focus on other groups, most notably intellectuals and small-scale merchants, and they show how they were not only passive recipients of top-down policies but rather active agents in the transformative processes, negotiating their own lifeworlds and interests with the wider patterns of change. In all case studies, the many-sided roles of international powers will, when appropriate, be put to the foreground. The same is the case with China’s regional diversity. The project will result in a book-length study. A second declared objective of this project is to prepare an online collection of the rich and diverse body of primary sources and secondary literature (both in several languages) on China’s complex metrological history during the first decades of the twentieth century. Both steps are important since this facet of 20th-century Chinese history has not yet been the subject of much historical inquiry. This is a significant gap since China’s metrological reforms offer many important insights into the country’s multi-layered transformations during the Republican Period– transformations that did not only foster homogeneity but also a high degree of contention, inequality and asynchronicity.