Roots and Branches: Woodland Institutions in South China, 800-1600

Abstract

In this dissertation I trace the evolution of the institutions governing woodland in South China over the longue durée. I claim that after a high point of state forestry the imperial government lost both the interest and the ability to manage woodland effectively. Forestry was largely taken over by lineages - kin groups organized around the worship of shared ancestors. I tie this transition in woodland governance to two interrelated trends: growth in the power and independence of lineage organizations, and of long-distance trade in wood products. First, I show changes in local state capacities for tax collection and dispute resolution, the growing organizational capacity of lineages. Second, I argue that the growth of trade in woodland products affected state and lineage differently. On the one hand, government bureaus had increasing difficulty governing wood land while finding it increasingly convenient to obtain wood products on the market. On the other hand, lineages were well-equipped for the business of managing local landscapes, and saw substantial profits to be made from the export of timber and other forest commodities. Finally, I argue that the rise of lineage influence shaped the terms in which woodland was claimed for private use. Over hundreds of years, claims to woodland shifted from the formal legal discourse specified by the imperial state to focus on the specialized language of fengshui. By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, claims no longer trumpeted the productive capacity of forests or their role in paying the taxes important to the state; they now focused on the physical and metaphysical powers of the wooded landscape and its role in protecting the graves important to lineages. Contrary to existing scholarship, I claim that the decline of state forestry did not necessarily lead to the decline of the woods themselves; lineage oversight was highly effective at managing forests for both production and protection, and areas of strong lineage control remained well-forested into the modern era.