Spatial Evolution Path of Historical International Community from the Perspective of Actor Network: A Case Study of Gulangyu Island Yuan Li Xiamen University Jing Guo Xiamen University Long Zhao Xiamen University Yiping Chen (
[email protected] ) Xiamen University Cheng Wang Xiamen University Cheng Wang Chinese Academy of Sciences Jonathan Li University of Waterloo Research article Keywords: Actor networks, Historical International Community, Spatial evolution, Historical geography, Gulangyu Island Posted Date: August 13th, 2021 DOI: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-779248/v1 License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Read Full License Page 1/20 Abstract Gulangyu Island is a special case of social development and changes since modern China. In the past, Chinese and foreign people lived together and Chinese and Western cultures coexisted, resulting in an international community with outstanding cultural diversity and modern quality of life. As a functional carrier, space is of great reference signicance to the research on the spatial evolution path of Gulangyu international community with the accelerating globalization and rapid expansion of urbanization. Based on the interpretation of historical maps and the integration of historical geographic information, this paper explores the evolution path of Gulangyu community space in modern times from the perspective of actor network theory. It is found that: (1) The change of key actors promotes the spatial evolution of Gulangyu international community. (2) In the stage of foreign culture dissemination (1840-1902), foreign nationals, as key actors, promoted the formation and development of actor networks through administrative recruitment and other means, and promoted Gulangyu Island to change from a traditional Minnan community to a modern community form, with the embryonic form of an international community beginning to emerge.