An IASH Work-in-Progress seminar, delivered by Dr Kelsey Granger (IASH-HCA Postdoctoral Fellow, 2024-25)
From Beijing to Buckingham Palace: The Pekingese Dog and Changing Views of China (1860–1930)
The issue of repatriating goods acquired through British colonial violence has not only made headlines in recent years but has even had a negative impact on current British foreign relations. The focus of such flashpoints has largely been artworks or human remains housed in British museum holdings. But what about living vestiges of colonial violence acquired alongside contested artwork? Despite entering Britain via imperial intervention in China during the Second Opium War (1856–1860), Pekingese dogs have yet to be properly considered as loot in scholarship. Their definition as such, however, is borne out by historical sources, with the first Pekingese dog brought to British shores in 1862 even being named Looty.
As a living piece of loot, the Pekingese was far more vulnerable than its inanimate counterparts to being reshaped by contemporary debates about China’s past, its future, and Britain’s (and Britons’) role in that development. Recent studies have explored the relevance of dog bodies in asserting racial or social identities, focusing primarily on male and European identities. The Pekingese, however, was largely owned by women and, as looted treasure from China’s palaces, the dogs were treated as living embodiments of Chineseness. My research situates the Pekingese body as a living archive capturing changing views of Chineseness, empire, race, and colonialism. Without analysing these transformations, we undervalue how these dogs were co-opted by various social groups to express, even physically embody, changing views of China and Chineseness at the turn of the twentieth century.
Please join in-person, or click the link below to join the webinar:
https://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/83015772676
Passcode: b1QpaAD7