Social Formation and Identity Construction: Alfred Caubrière and his Chinese Catholic village in northeast China

Abstract

Alfred Caubrière (1876-1948) was a French Catholic missionary who worked in the Manchuria Mission in northeast China from 1899 to 1948. During the twenty-seven years from 1900 to 1927, Caubrière lived in a small village which was developed from a few Catholic families from other parts of China. Caubrière left us over two hundred family letters written in this village and thirteen volumes of Chinese language study notes, which recorded his Chinese Catholic villagers’ daily life conversations word by word. As the village under study did not see the establishment of official administrative order until 1906, the growth of Christianity in the community coincided with the formation of the local society. Examining the intimate world constructed by Caubrière’s records of the vernacular language and the everyday rural life, this paper explores the construction of religious identity in a local society in the early twentieth century. It also studies the ways in which the rigorous Catholic identity became a resource of local governance and grew into an integral part of the local culture. This study illuminates a microhistorical perspective into how local identity is shaped by and fits into transnational discourses on religion, society, and state.