, Senior Lecturer in the , from the , and at Swansea University, have been awarded a grant of £662,487 from the for a three-year research project, 鈥楥olonialism in comparative perspective: Tianjin under nine flags, 1860-1949鈥�.
The project, which started on 1 September and is co-ordinated by Dr Marinelli, comprises a team of eight researchers. Through a series of interdisciplinary workshops, conferences and collaborative and individual research projects, the team will develop new understandings of colonial and modern Chinese history, though a focus on the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin. It develops work initiated by the Centre for East Asian Studies and the University鈥檚 .
Between 1860 and 1945 Tianjin was the site of up to nine foreign-controlled concessions, as well as, temporarily, a multinational military government (1900-02), and a series of evolving municipal administrations. The research aims to produce a comparative and transnational analysis of the identities, practices and rivalries of five of the major powers established in Tianjin, and more widely in China -- Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia.