SOAS China Institute Talk

This talk is free and open to the public, no booking required. Please note that admission is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Monday 19 February 2018, 5pm-6.30pm
Resigned Activism: Living with Pollution in Rural China
Speaker: Dr Anna Lora-Wainwright (University of Oxford)
Room G3, Main college building, SOAS, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H OXG

Abstract
Pollution is one of the most pressing issues facing contemporary China and among the most prominent causes for unrest. Much of industry and mining takes place in rural areas, yet we know little about how rural communities affected by severe pollution make sense of it and the diverse form of activism they embrace. This talk draws on Dr Lora-Wainwright's new book to describe some of these engagements with pollution touching on three in-depth case studies. It argues for a more encompassing, holistic and diachronic study of pollution as it is experienced in its local contexts. It promotes an anthropological study of how villagers experience pollution, what socio-economic and political relations exist between communities, local officials and polluting firms, how patterns of action and inaction develop and how they relate to shifting definitions of health, environment, development and a good life. The term “resigned activism” serves as a conceptual tool to attend to subtle shifts in parameters and expectations and to the diverse forms of environmental engagement that they support. It encapsulates a spectrum of perceptions and practices comprising acts that may fit the conventional label of collective environmental contention, such as protesting at the factory gates and filing petitions. But it also includes less confrontational and more individualised or family-oriented tactics aimed at minimising pollution in one’s immediate surroundings.

Biography
Anna Lora-Wainwright is Associate Professor of the Human Geography of China in the School of Geography and the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies at the University of Oxford. She holds a BA in Social Anthropology and an MA in Chinese Studies, both from SOAS, University of London and a PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Oxford. She is the author Fighting for Breath: Living Morally and Dying of Cancer in Rural China (2013) and director of the Leverhulme-funded project Circuits of waste and value: making e-waste subjects in China and Japan. She is co-founder of CHEW (China’s Health, Environment and Welfare Research Group)

https://www.soas.ac.uk/china-institute/events/19feb2018-resigned-activism-living-with-pollution-in-rural-china.html

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Kind regards,


Li-Sa Whittington
Executive Officer, SOAS China Institute
SOAS, University of London
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

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