A Society Apart: Rural Chinese Catholics and the Historiography of ‘Otherness’

This article examines the theme of ‘otherness’ in historical scholarship on rural Chinese Catholic communities. Whereas studies of the Jesuit Mission in China tend to emphasise the potential harmony between Christianity and elite Confucian culture, a methodological turn towards local history during the 1980s and 90s has revealed that ‘otherness’ or ‘separation’ may be a more helpful heuristic lens for understanding the situation of the vast majority of Catholics in rural China. This article surveys English-language and Chinese-language micro-histories of rural villages. It maps three general historiographical views by which historians explain Catholic villagers’ ‘otherness’ as the result of cultural dissonance, socio-economic inequality or relative political power. By periodising these centuries of history according to the feasibility of opting out of mainstream society, this article seeks to show how Chinese Catholic identity continues to be forged at the ever-moving borderline between Catholic and non-Catholic society.