从“边缘人”到国家在地方上的“代理人”——以滇省精英为对象

From “Marginal Persons” to “Agents” of the Nation at the Local Level

在传统疆域观下,边境地区往往被政府视为“荒服之外”;边地各部族亦被视为“边外野夷”,不予治理。然而,清季民初西南边事日棘之际,缅宁士绅彭锟、澜沧土司石玉清等一批滇西边疆地区的社会精英们经长期与西方文化接触,加以清末以来历次边事实践,逐渐萌生近代国民意识,爆发出强烈的爱国激情,不同程度地参与了中缅联合勘界、滇西边防建设、抵御英军殖民侵犯等活动,在近代滇缅界务交涉中发挥了巨大的作用。在此过程中,社会精英们事实上承担起了管理地方的责任,从“边缘人”转化成为国家在地方上的“代理人”,使得政府在处理边境事务时不得不借助他们在地方上的权势,才可以调动基层社会的政治与文化资源。

In the traditional view of territory, border areas were often regarded by the government as “out of the regiment governance” and unimportant, and thus the tribes in the border areas were also considered “barbarians in the border areas” and were treated with impunity. However, during the period of the late Qing dynasty and the early Republic of China, when things were getting tough in the southwest of Yunnan, a group of social elites active in the west of Yunnan, such as Peng Kun, a member of the gentry in Myanmar and Ningxia, as well as Shi Yuqing, a chieftain of Lancang, had been in contact with Western culture for a long time and engaged in border affairs since the end of the Qing Dynasty, during which they gradually generated their modern national consciousness, exhibited their strong patriotic passion, and participated to varying degrees in the Sino-Myanmar joint boundary survey, the border defense construction in western Yunnan, and the resistance against the British colonial invasion, thus having played a huge role in the negotiation of the boundary affairs in modern Yunnan and Myanmar. In this process, the social elites actually assumed the responsibility of local management, transforming from “marginal persons” to “agents” of the state in the local area, so that the government had to rely on their local power to mobilize the political and cultural resources of the grassroots society when dealing with border affairs.