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I am happy to share that a collection of articles on migration in early medieval China is now online! The whole series of articles can be accessed here: https://tinyurl.com/yywbjt35 (If you don't have access and want to read the articles, let me know)
To add to what @xujnx and @WenYiHuang1 have already said about the forum, a probably too long thread with some of my own thoughts, which will hopefully encourage you to read the forum itself!
The article by Dr Jin Xu @xujnx is about the art in the tomb of a Sogdian merchant and his spouse, who migrated from what is now Uzbekistan to northwest China, and eventually to the capital in Chang'an (modern Xi'an) in the late 6th century. https://cup.org/2LKPgqQ
Dr. Xu shows how the tomb art tells the story of their migration with motifs from Zoroastrian, Buddhist, and Sogdian art. I was surprised to see these elements used to tell such a personal story, and to see Buddhist images combined those from other traditions.
You can learn much more (and see the beautiful art) in Dr. Xu's own thread here: https://twitter.com/xujnx/status/1349136614677741570
Dr Wen-yi Huang @WenYiHuang1 writes about how the Northern Wei (386-534 CE) dealt with migrants arriving from the south. She uses an incredible variety of evidence from epitaphs to biographies to uncover new details about state treatment of migrants. https://cup.org/2XEOYEw
The state mandated where migrants could live, and even where they could be buried. In Luoyang, at the time the largest city in the world, Dr Huang points out that exiles and refugees from the south were assigned to group residences based on their particular region of origin
These hostels were on the southern banks of the Luo river While some say this location was intended to give southerners access to familiar riparian produce, Huang makes the point that the hostels were also closer to government offices, enabling easier surveillance and control
Dr Xiaofei Tian (Not on Twitter, I think) addresses migration from North to South, focusing on stories circulated among the elite emigre population who resettled around Jiankang (now Nanjing) after the fall of the Western Jin (early 4th century) https://cup.org/3qmbq1t
Dr Tian looks at a 5th century collection of supernatural tales, treating stories with representations of the "exotic" (to the migrants) local population and environment as examples of colonialist fantasy.
She shows how these tales, as colonialist literature often does, exaggerate and eroticize encounters with ethnic others. She ties this to trauma the emigre population brought to those already living on the land they occupied.
This article provides an important counterpoint to the topic of my own contribution, which focuses more on the trauma the same group of migrants experienced in their travels, and its legacy among their descendants. https://cup.org/3qopxnj
I use the scholar and diviner Guo Pu as an example, looking at accounts of his life before, during, and after migrating to Jiankang. Guo Pu's biography in the historical text Jinshu 晉書 combines legends and anecdotes with more staid details about his bureaucratic career
Though Guo Pu's life has already been very thoroughly studied, my goal was to look at this how this biography creates a new narrative by weaving together accounts that already circulated in other sources.
I wanted to show that medieval historians and storytellers were very interested in narrativizing the mass migration from Luoyang (and thereabouts) to Jiankang, but that, at least initially, there was not a consensus about why this migration was significant
In Jinshu migration narratives, however, a common pattern emerges, in which the migration "across the river" is characterized as an experience that causes irrevocable changes in those who take the journey.
Guo Pu begins his journey south as a supernaturally talented hero, but his story ends with a dark period of failure and alcoholism, which ends with Guo Pu running afoul of a powerful faction and dying by execution.
Similar patterns of post-migration decline recur in the stories of numerous other migrants, leading me to conclude that this was not just a historical pattern, but an important part of the story that migrants and their descendants were interested in telling.
I hope this megathread has piqued your interest. Of course I've only scratched the surface (and my apologies to other authors if I've misrepresented your points!) To get the full story, please check out the full articles in the forum!
