Religious Economies in Late Imperial and Modern China

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel

Abstract

Today, we often forget that for much of human history, “the economy” was not autonomous from other social domains and did not always dictate to them. Instead, economic transactions were deeply embedded in religious cosmologies and ethical systems anchored in divine worlds. This panel explores the interaction between earthly economies, kinship, state relations, and religious logics in China. We suggest that monetary engagements are simultaneously economic and religious, and that personal and collective properties are concrete mediums of pious action. Landed assets, temples, charities, and rituals were avenues for simultaneously advancing worldly gains and sacred welfare. Religious calculations of merit directed economic activities, and economic considerations expanded sacred ethical projects.

We begin with the Qing, where rituals aiming at connecting worldly and sacred affairs revealed the enmeshed nature of economy and religion. Daniel Burton-Rose explores how a rising lineage in Suzhou justified its increasing wealth as divine reward for its charitable work. Weiwei Luo examines the procedures of building public trust in temple finances in Shanxi. Into the Republican period, Tristan Brown shows how the earth itself was taken as living and magical in land claims in Sichuan. Finally, Mayfair Yang explores the rural development model in contemporary Wenzhou, where a ritual economy encourages investment of worldly wealth for the afterlife. Together, we show that transactions in religious properties were geared toward creating solidarity, trust, political legitimacy, and social distinction; while such deeds of perpetuating worldly prosperity were also for the purpose of accruing sacred or religious capital.

Area of Study

• China and Inner Asia

Session Organizers

• Weiwei Luo, Columbia University

• Tristan Brown, Columbia University

Chair

• Hongyan Xiang, Colorado State University

Individual Presentations

• The “Wenzhou Model”: Ritual Economy, Religious Businesses, and a Critique of Weber’s Protestant Ethic for China - Mayfair Mei-hui Yang, University of California, Santa Barbara

• Affluence as Divine Recompense: The Charitable Mode of Wealth Justification among the Peng clan of Suzhou, 1670s-1870s - Daniel Burton-Rose, Princeton University

• Quantifying the Auspicious: Fengshui as a Legal Strategy and Administrative Tool in Cases from the Nanbu County Archive - Tristan Brown, Columbia University

• An Honest Economy: Collective Reckoning in Qing Shanxi - Weiwei Luo, Columbia University

Discussant

• Richard Von Glahn, University of California, Los Angeles