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Abstract

How did relief work in a transnational context offer an agency space for Chinese and foreign women during wartime China? This dissertation focuses on the role of women in relief activities during the War of Resistance against Japan and the Second World War in China (1937-1945) from transnational and transcultural perspectives. It investigates the complex ways in which Western and Chinese women together repositioned themselves in the public sphere through charitable, humanitarian, and religious activities in a crucial historical period that witnessed major global and international transformations. Through some significant case studies that involve the Red Cross and the Catholic missionary female orders of the Ingenbohl Sisters from Switzerland and the Italian Canossian Sisters, the research increases the field of foreign and Chinese women’s history, enabling a deeper comprehension of the contributions they made in relief work. I examine what global connections provided opportunities for women working in relief activities, and how these efforts tapped into the so-called feminine virtue and merged the virtuous women—self-sacrificing, frugal, generous, caring and helpful—with that of a nurse and a nun.