This thesis investigates southern China as a part of dynamic and extensive interregional networks from the third to the first millennium BC and explores the changing roles of different southern regions within the interregional relationships. This was an important transitional period for southern China as it was the time when several prominent and farreaching innovations of technologies and material culture were made or adopted in the area. Four key sets of materials – rice, bronze, ceramics and jade – are examined with a World-system perspective to reveal interregional contacts in different directions and of different nature between southern China and a number of neighbouring regions. By stressing on local responses towards different technologies and material culture in different period, an alternative narrative to that stemmed from Chinese historiography is, therefore, suggested. Instead of being a passive and 'backward' periphery in the traditional sense, southern China presents diversification of material culture over time. Many of the mechanisms of transmission and circulation in the south are characterised by 'leaked' technologies and designs, as well as 'selective adoption' and local redevelopment of material culture.

L’histoire de la médicalisation de la maternité en Chine reste encore mal connue et ce mémoire constitue une amorce pour tenter de défricher ce riche et vaste terrain. Il examine dans quel cadre et dans quelle mesure la prise en charge de la maternité des femmes chinoises a évolué au sein des postes médicaux consulaires français du sud de la Chine (Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan), de l’arrivée des premiers médecins en 1898, jusqu’à la veille de la Seconde Guerre mondiale en 1938. Il démontre comment a pu se traduire l’œuvre médicale française en matière de prise en charge de la grossesse, de l’accouchement et des soins à donner au nouveau-né dans les établissements de santé consulaires, et tente de voir jusqu’à quel point, pourquoi et dans quels domaines précisément l’offre de soins à l’occidentale proposée par les Français dans ces régions a pu atteindre les futures et nouvelles mères chinoises. / The history of medicalization of maternity in China is still poorly understood and this master thesis is a first step in the attempt to clear this rich and vast ground. It examines the context in which and to what extent the care of the Chinese women’s maternity has evolved in the French medical consular posts of Southern China (Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan), from the arrival of the first doctors in 1898 until the eve of the Second World War in1938. It demonstrates how the French sanitary mission took care of pregnancy, childbirth, and new-born health in the consular health establishments, and attempts to see how far, why, and in what areas specifically the Western health care proposed by the French in these regions could have reached the future and new Chinese mothers.

L’histoire de la médicalisation de la maternité en Chine reste encore mal connue et ce mémoire constitue une amorce pour tenter de défricher ce riche et vaste terrain. Il examine dans quel cadre et dans quelle mesure la prise en charge de la maternité des femmes chinoises a évolué au sein des postes médicaux consulaires français du sud de la Chine (Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan), de l’arrivée des premiers médecins en 1898, jusqu’à la veille de la Seconde Guerre mondiale en 1938. Il démontre comment a pu se traduire l’œuvre médicale française en matière de prise en charge de la grossesse, de l’accouchement et des soins à donner au nouveau-né dans les établissements de santé consulaires, et tente de voir jusqu’à quel point, pourquoi et dans quels domaines précisément l’offre de soins à l’occidentale proposée par les Français dans ces régions a pu atteindre les futures et nouvelles mères chinoises. / The history of medicalization of maternity in China is still poorly understood and this master thesis is a first step in the attempt to clear this rich and vast ground. It examines the context in which and to what extent the care of the Chinese women’s maternity has evolved in the French medical consular posts of Southern China (Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan), from the arrival of the first doctors in 1898 until the eve of the Second World War in1938. It demonstrates how the French sanitary mission took care of pregnancy, childbirth, and new-born health in the consular health establishments, and attempts to see how far, why, and in what areas specifically the Western health care proposed by the French in these regions could have reached the future and new Chinese mothers.