The Many Values of Night Soil in Wartime China
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5071383 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nicole Elizabeth Barnes (0000-0003-1628-1153, Duke University , Durham, NC, US, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 259 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 194-228 |
| Publication date | 2023-04-22 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Past & Present (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-2746 • E-ISSN: 1477-464X |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/pastj/gtac021 |
| OpenAlex | W4285253706 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
In March 1940, leaders of the Chongqing night-soil trade union sent a petition to the governor of China's Sichuan province to contest health officials' attempts to seize the night-soil industry. Cleanliness in Chongqing, the national capital during the War of Resistance against Japan (1937-45), held profound significance for China's hygienic modernity, but Nationalist authorities failed to ensure it. On their part, the petitioners failed to recognize the centrality of odour in health officials' agenda. These joint failures left the wartime capital mired in muck. This article employs microhistorical analysis of the 1940 petition to highlight a significant shift in olfactory sensibility. Comparison with a similar instance in nearby Hankou eleven years later, when Communist cadres succeeded in breaking the local night-soil gang, elucidates key distinctions between the Nationalist and Communist states. The conclusion considers what might be possible if we imagine using night soil to fertilize soils not as an anti-modern practice but as a sustainable means of processing waste and caring for our planet. To regain a portion of night soil's many values, we must conquer the obstacles of disease transmission and disgust. The former is a technical problem for which solutions already exist; the latter is a formidable social problem
China · Communism · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law
| Citations per year | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |