Date:
Location:
Speaker: Elizabeth Lord
Elizabeth LORD, Ph.D. candidate, Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto
Sponsored by the China Project, Harvard Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Abstract:
Within the context of a pressing environmental crisis, China has set out to build an ‘ecological civilization’. Since the turn of the millennium, this ambitious project has been implemented through nation-wide environmental protection policies, international academic collaborations and commitments, not to mention uplifting environmental rhetoric. Meanwhile, the rural/urban divide remains profound. This study asks how the rural is integrated into China’s environmental project. As urbanites remain mostly free from environmental responsibilities and are asked to purchase consumer goods to boost the economy, rural people are at the forefront of environmental protection — they are China’s ecological foot soldiers. As this process unfolds, a paradox emerges: rural people are essential to the environmental project; yet rural areas are amongst the least monitored and the most degraded ones. While existing studies explain this paradox by pointing to ineffective governance, I show how limits and pressures on environmental research affect what is known, emphasized or made invisible to those bringing the environmental project to life. By analyzing the politics of research, including methodological choices and funding structures, I illustrate how the rural is integrated into China’s green turn, an important question considering the environmental project risks reproducing existing rural/urban inequalities.