Wesley Chaney is a Ph.D. candidate in History at Stanford University. His current project centers on law and socioeconomic change in northwest China during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911); he is currently living in Beijing for one year while conducting research on a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad grant. The main sources of his work include legal cases and contracts, though he also uses a variety of non-legal sources such as genealogies, gazetteers, and fiction.