Abstract
This dissertation examines the cultural, environmental, and commercial history of “sea luxuries”—notably pearls, sea cucumbers, and edible birds’ nests—in southern maritime China between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. It explores how people in early modern China perceived, utilized, and reshaped the extensive oceanic zone stretching from southern China to the shores of Southeast Asia. Understanding this process sheds new light on the Chinese interaction with the marine ecology and its unique role in the early modern maritime world. The dissertation traces the rising demand for sea luxuries to the “utilitarian turn” in early modern knowledge making of the marine world. The epistemic shift to utilitarian, use-oriented concerns linked marine species to medicinal and nutritional functions, thereby turning the once considered dangerous and mysterious ocean into a space of products that could be explored, investigated, and exploited. Confucian literati began to reconcile empirical observation of marine life with practical learnings related to governing and provisioning the empire. The high demand for sea luxuries, combined with the depletion of high-end marine resources in nearshore waters, drove an expansive approach to the South China Sea and beyond. By the eighteenth century, the expanding commercial network, advancements in fishing and navigation technologies, as well as the popularization of luxury consumption, collectively transformed this maritime world into an integrated ecological reservoir, from which sea luxuries were increasingly sourced to sustain consumption and profit. This continuous supply of marine goods from Southeast Asian peripheries to the Chinese center not only shaped transregional trade and environmental change but also redefined the spatial and material contours of China’s maritime frontier. Drawing on Chinese local gazetteers, maritime writings, maps, and multilingual archives of the Qing court and European East India companies, the dissertation argues that the expansion of Chinese-driven demand for “sea luxuries”—notably pearls, sea cucumbers, and edible birds’ nests—generated a distinct kind of commodity frontier. Unlike colonial commodity frontiers driven by European territorial expansion, this commodity frontier was forged through diasporic networks of Chinese merchants and fishermen, who utilized their vernacular maritime knowledge, navigational techniques, and commercial acumen to dominate the trade of sea luxuries in maritime Southeast Asia.
Committee Chair
Steven Miles
Committee Members
Christine Johnson; Lori Watt; Nathan Vedal; Uluğ Kuzuoğlu
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Author's Department
History
Document Type
Dissertation
Date of Award
8-19-2025
Language
English (en)
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7936/jw62-g882
Author's ORCID
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4592-6013
Recommended Citation
Shi, Kejian, "Sea of Luxuries: Oceanic Knowledge, Environment, and the Making of Commodity Frontiers in Southern Maritime China, 1500–1900" (2025). Arts & Sciences Theses and Dissertations. 3615.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.7936/jw62-g882