This course explores the role played by contracts and agreements in maintaining order in local society in pre-modern China, with an emphasis on demonstrating their value as sources for historical analysis. Main themes include use of contracts in daily life, categorization of contracts, functions of oral agreements and written contracts, settlement of disputes by customary law and civil litigation, power of local elites and the hierarchical background supporting contractual relations. Contracts and documents concern multi-ethnic areas in Southwest China, and students must possess the ability to read them in the original. Discussions will include not only deep reading of contracts, textual and historical analysis, but also their role as instruments of social control. This course is designed to guide students in creatively using contracts as sources for social history and is not a mere factual and descriptive account of Chinese contracts.