| "Unlikely Heirs" is a study of war orphans during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and works on two levels: discourse and practice. In it I make two main arguments. The first is on the level of practice: something unique in Chinese history occurred in the treatment of war orphans during the war. Orphanages and foundling homes existed in other periods of Chinese history, but the wartime children's homes were the first created as part of a large-scale project at the initiative of the state itself, with the purpose not simply of providing charitable assistance to children in need, but with the goal of educating children and providing them with a particular set of skills, and of indoctrinating them with a set of ideologies for shaping them into modern worker-citizens.;The second argument pertains to discourse: ideas of "the child," and "the orphan" in particular, were imbued with a representational value unique to this period. War orphans became an important rallying point for both the Nationalists and the Communists. Rather than be drowned out in the din and rubble of massive wartime violence, the "war orphan," refined and shaped into a potent cultural symbol, was granted its own distinctive clarion call infused with nationalist ideology. These two levels of study are importantly linked because changed concepts about the values and roles of war orphans were instantiated in practices in wartime children's homes.;In the process of making these arguments, this dissertation also contributes three main findings to our understanding of wartime history and the history of child welfare in China. First, this study suggests the power of wartime nationalist discourse in shaping ideas and attitudes. Government propaganda generated from the top provided an arsenal of ideas that child relief advocates utilized to generate support for child relief efforts. Second, this study lifts a corner of the curtain of nationalism to reveal how nationalist ideals and practices were inculcated in the very young, especially those previously disenfranchised from the political body. Third, and finally, the dissertation identifies the war years as an important predecessor to the modern Chinese child welfare system. |
