GIS in urban cultural studies: Reflections from the project on Republican Beijing

Abstract

This is a reflective report of our historical GIS project on Beijing's urban culture during a culturally transitional and transformative period when the city operated not under direct political and ideological control by a supreme sovereign authority as the capital of an empire or an effectively unified nation-state. It is between the fall of the imperial order and before the Japanese occupation, 12 years before the establishment of the People's Republic of China. In this article, we will report what the project is about but we also have an underlying concern of what more GIS can tell us about historical Beijing as a city. This question will be addressed by drawing from the experience of our project. The article discusses the benefits gained and difficulties we encountered and our reflections upon a number of more fundamental theoretical issues. The scholarship contexts pertaining to the application of historical GIS to modern Chinese history and urban history are provided, against which a case of legal cultural development, especially that of the newly emergent legal profession, is discussed to illustrate in a spatial perspective the complex interplay between the legal heritage and transplants in Republican Beijing.