Welcome Message

Welcome to the website of the PRC Data Commune!

We are a network of historians of the People’s Republic of China based at universities in North America, Europe, and China who are dedicated to collaboration in research and teaching. We have each individually collected source materials from Chinese archives, or acquired such materials from second hand bookstores or online dealers, and we are interested in sharing our private collections with others.

The way the PRC Data Commune works is simple: each commune member puts at least one (hopefully more!) source texts in the common pool, together with some basic information about document type, date, authorship, provenance, etc. Members also provide a short bio for our Members page. In contrast to the real People’s Communes of the Maoist periods, members remain in full control of their share: you decide if you want to make your source text accessible to the general public, or to all other members, or only to those with whom you share a text-specific password. We hope that the PRC Data Commune will develop into a digital workshop where researchers from different countries and at different levels – graduate students, junior faculty, and seasoned practitioners – can share experiences and learn from each other.

How to use this website: [hide/show]

For students: [hide/show] Since the 1980s, access to Chinese archives has increased exponentially, and growing numbers of American and European graduate students go to China to pursue archival research. One aim of this website is to help students to prepare for the field, either in a classroom setting or through self-study. Sources from the PRC may be easier to read than those from earlier periods, but they are by no means self-evident. As with most other historical sources, one needs to read a substantial number of meeting minutes or work reports to understand the format. One also needs to know how, why, and by whom they were produced, what was preserved and what wasn’t, and how documents were filed in order to be able to fully utilize them. We aim to publish a cross-section of archival and “sub-archival” documents, ranging from central and provincial government instructions to village-level notes, on a wide range of topics. Our resource page [hyperlink] provides helpful instructions and links to online guides and handbooks.  The tutorials page [hyperlink] contains hands-on tutorials on how to read documents.

For teachers:  [hide/show] Our long-term aim is to produce a range of annotated documents, complete with glossaries, introductory notes, translations, etc., that can be used in teaching. Teachers should feel free to use the posted documents in the classroom. If you assign annotation and translation tasks to students, we encourage you to post your annotated versions on the website, for future use by teachers and students. Once we have annotated versions of several texts, we will approach a publisher for a printed textbook (which may then be published with an additional website where students can find background materials).  See here for a note on copyright and “best practices.”

How to post documents:

As researchers, we build up our own collections of documents, which we may want to share with others without releasing them onto the World Wide Web, where they may be used in indiscriminate and harmful ways. The PRC Data Commune offers a way for researchers to deposit their materials on a safe server, while retaining control over who can access them and who can’t. Release to the public should be the ultimate aim (if you want to keep your materials entirely for yourself, there is no point in posting them here!) but you determine when and to whom you release your texts. We can store transcripts in word, scanned documents in pdf and jpg formats, and images in jpg and tiff. We don’t currently store videos and sound recordings but may develop these capacities if there is demand. We ask you to provide information about the type, title, date, provenance, and content of the documents you post. This information will be visible to the general public even if you keep the document itself keyword protected.

To post materials, please fill in a member form with some basic information about yourself, and a document form for each document that you post. Provide as much information as you reasonably can. If you post large quantities of documents, contact us; we can provide help with labeling and cataloging them.

Friends and Interlocutors: The field of PRC history is expanding rapidly, and we want to promote discussion and exchange among practitioners in the field.  We build up on the work of other digital discussion forums, such as the very useful Dissertation Reviews site with its “Fresh from the Archives” page, the UC San Diego Modern Chinese History Research website, and Wu Yiching’s 地方文革史交流网. Many of our members are also active on the recently established discussion network H-PRC [hyperlink] on H-Net. Additional links can be found on our resource page [hyperlink].