proper and the Mongolian steppe. While Lattimore is often more nuanced in
his assertions than might be expected in a work that is nearly seventy-five
years old, his conclusions tend toward primordial and immutable distinctions
between“irreconcilable”conditions that ignore the more malleable state of
the Sino-Mongolian ecotone; Lattimore,Inner Asian Frontiers, 54 – 55. On the
other hand, his sensitivity to complex interactions between diverse livestock
and forage vegetation have drawn the attention and appreciation of rangeland
specialists as recently as 2008 ; Miller and Sheehy,“The Relevance of Owen
Lattimore’s Writings,” 103 – 15.
40 An influential example of the former is White,The Middle Ground.An
important example of the latter is Howell,“Ainu Ethnicity,” 69 – 93. For
comparative discussions see Chappell, “Ethnogenesis and Frontiers,”
267 – 75 ; Baud and Van Schendel,“Toward a Comparative History of Border-
lands,” 211 – 42.
41 For discussions of borderland formation focused on human agency, see Adel-
man and Aron,“From Borders to Empires”; 814 – 41 ; Parker,“Towards an
Understanding of Borderland Processes,” 77 – 100 ; White,“Creative Misun-
derstandings and New Understandings,” 9 – 14. For Eurasian perspectives, see
Power and Standen, eds.,Frontiers in Question; Znamenski,“The Ethic of
Empire,” 108.
42 My sense of“recursive”here is related to that of Giddens,The Constitution of
Society,xxiii, 25 – 26. See also Bourdieu,Outline of a Theory of Practice,
78 – 87 ; Postone et al.,“Introduction: Bourdieu and Social Theory,” 4. Key
elements of Giddens’s structuration theory, such as“practical consciousness”
and of Pierre Bourdieu’s work on“field and habitus”seek to explain how
individual practice and collective social formations are mutually constitutive.
I suggest a similar recursive relationship exists between humans and ecology,
although the latter cannot be entirely encompassed by the former.
43 Lower urbanization and related patterns also problematize analyses based on
the conventional macroregion model, which is also rooted in questionable
steady-state assumptions. For an extended critique, see Cartier,“Origins and
Evolution of a Geographical Idea,” 79 – 142. I have attempted to define my
spatial units “environmentally,” as distinctive interdependencies between
people,flora and fauna. These form the locus of interactions between indigen-
ous peoples, the Qing state, and select ecological elements all active within
these comparatively patchy, more dynamic spaces.
44 Crumley,“The Ecology of Conquest,” 183 – 85.
45 I use“Myanmar”to designate the region commonly referred to as“Burma”in
various English sources in accordance with the Qing term“Miandian”and the
Konbaung Dynasty term“Myanma”; Thant,The Making of Modern Burma,
83. See also Yule and Burnell,Hobson-Jobson, 131.
46 For some useful discussions of complications arising from ethnic terminology,
see Abramson,Ethnic Identity in Tang China, 2 – 3 ; Yang Nianqun,Hechu shi
‘Jiangnan’? 10 – 11 ; Elverskog,Our Great Qing, 24 – 25 , 181 n; Sneath,The
Headless State, 65 – 68 , 96 – 97.
47 For extensive abstracts of works in“Manchu studies”(Manxue) globally
during the last century, see Yan Chongnian, 20 shiji Manxue zhuzuo tiyao.
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