Du Jiaqi 杜嘉琪

Education:
B.A., Northwest Normal University
M.A., University of Chinese Academy of Sciences

Research Interest:
The History of Cartography; Transnational Networks

Self-Introduction:
Hello, my name is Jiaqi Du. I am currently a PhD student in the Department of Chinese Studies at the National University of Singapore. I received my master’s degree in the History of Science and Technology from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. My research interests include the history of cartography and transnational networks.

Thesis Advisor: Prof Koh Khee Heong

Thesis Title: Territories and Networks in the Early Modern Maritime Space: Reconstructing the Spatial Perceptions of China’s Southeastern Seaboard, 1660–1800 (tentative)

Thesis Research Area:
My research explores how people understood and represented maritime space along China’s southeastern coast between 1660 and 1800. Focusing on Fujian and Guangdong, I examine how Qing officials and scholars, local merchants and fishermen, and Western missionaries developed different ways of seeing and using the sea. While the state often viewed the coast through the lens of territory, administration, and defense, maritime communities understood it through ports, routes, trade, and everyday navigation. Western cartographic knowledge further interacted with both perspectives. By combining historical maps, written records, and digital mapping methods, my research reconstructs these different spatial perceptions and explores how their interactions shaped understandings of China’s maritime world in an age of expanding global connections.