EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Environment 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 220 Hansen Mette Halskov (University of Oslo) Is Air Pollution Changing China? Key words: environment, air pollution, social change, political change Does Xi Jinping’s war on pollution stand a chance?Will the Chinese people opt for a deeper environmental clean-up rather than intensified economic expansion? How has the conceptual landscape of “polluted air” evolved since last century China? The paper presenters in this double panel are part of a larger interdiscipli- nary research project about the social and political dynamics of air pollution in China (“Airborne: Pollution, Climate Change and New Visions of Sustainability in China”). Based on different research methodologies and recently collected data, the seven papers in the double panel approach our general assumption that experiences and risks of air pollution are reshaping interfaces between policy, science, media, business and population. Each of the papers will present results and analyses from smaller sub-projects that taken together will open up for a broader discussion — with the audience and two invited discussants — of how air pol- lution might be changing China socially and politically. The panel is interdisciplinary and include scholars from anthropology, political science, sinology, and media science, with two discussants both working on key environmental issues in China and Taiwan. Hansen Mette Halskov (University of Oslo) Airborne: the Present Contours of Air Pollution in China and Its Human Consequences Key words: air pollution, interdisciplinarity, environmental perceptions, media The paper, co-authored by a chemist and an antropologist, briefly outlines the state of air pollution in China including the more rarely debated impact of household air pollution created by widespread use of solid fuel for heating and cooking. The paper serves as an introduction to the following paper presentations which form part of a larger interdisciplinary reserach project on the human dimensions of air pollution in China. Thirteen Chinese, European and American scholars from the disciplines of anthropology, political science, chemistry, media science and sinology cooperate in this project to answer the question how and with which consequence political authorities, scientists, mediea, rural/urban inhabitants, and environmental organizations seek new forms of interaction in responding to the inseparable risks of air pollution in China and global climate change. The introductory paper presents the main theoretical and methodological con- siderations behind the broader Airborne project, and the following individual papers focus on preliminary analyses of findings and results from data collection in some of the sub-projects that started in 2014 and 2015. (The paper is co-authored with Kristin Aunan). Huang Fei (The University of Tübingen) Dependency, Conflict and Mobility: Contesting Lands in Pre-Modern Society and Environment of Southwest China Key words: Southwest Frontier, Han immigrants, indigenous, land, Pre-Morden China With its harsh and unwelcome terrain, almost all settlements in the Southwest have developed on bazi land. Bazi is a common vernacular term in Southwest China used to refer to the fertile and flat valleys in the interior of mountainous regions. In Yunnan province there are around 1800 such valleys, varying in size from a couple square kilometers to several hundred square kilometers, but they comprise only six percent of total land area. As the only areas suitable for concentrated settlement, bazi form the centers of interactions between environment and human agency, where different groups compete for power and space in the Southwest. Similar to other parts of the southwest, northeastern Yunnan continued to be occupied primarily by indigenous for many centuries. In the eighteenth century the Qing implemented the reform of native prefect system and established their new government center on the bazi land of northeastern Yunnan. Meanwhile, drawn by the flourishing mining business, increasing numbers of Han Chinese migrants from