Search

In global environmental governance, efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions often involve turning pollution rights into commodities, essentially privatizing the air. Policies like carbon pricing and market approaches are considered effective solutions, especially within capitalist systems, and continue to rely on logics of the tragedy of the (atmospheric) commons. In China, the Communist Party proposed environmental policies aligning with capitalist development principles under the concept of 'ecological civilization'. However, the perspectives on the ground differ from the government's plans. Citizens, including sci-fi enthusiasts and eco-utopian thinkers in both rural and urban areas, have their own visions for a shared future that go beyond the narrow focus on economic growth, markets and pricing. Contrary to official narratives, interviews, social media discussions and popular artworks reveal that many envision the future 'ecological civilization' with clean air as commons for the more-than-human world. I argue that anthropological perspectives must attend to such creative spaces in which political subjects become enfolded in the commons, without eclipsing their potential to reinforce class divisions and social inequalities in environmental aspirations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social Anthropology / Anthropologie Sociale is the property of Berghahn Books and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the "coal province" of Shanxi, residents grapple with tensions between caring for their families and caring about their environment. In creating ethical pathways through care, residents must navigate the paradox of livelihoods dependent on forms of development that endanger lives and pollute environments. This dilemma has crystallized over time, as the personal and particular demands of the present have become enmeshed with long-standing concerns over environmental degradation. Rather than characterizing family care as concrete and environmental care as abstract, acts of care in Shanxi link the reproductive crisis of the family with the reproductive crisis of the environment: the article presents instances under which the attention, empathy and recognition of care for concrete others are scaled up to the levels of ecology and planetary crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining the rise of children's birthday celebrations in rural China, this article asks what is at stake in these festivities. As kin, friends, and neighbours rally around offspring, birthday parties focus on what children are and will become. Through ritual acts relatives express ties to scarce offspring as kin, often in competition with one another and the values they seek children to attain. Rural citizens thereby negotiate and contest new forms of social exclusion linked to population policies and economic transformation in the Chinese countryside. By imbuing birthday parties with ritual forms, these celebrations challenge theoretical assumptions about the secularisation of kinship under capitalism and the nuclearisation of the family through state bureaucracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Culture” has become a resource to be excavated and marketed for profit throughout China in recent decades. This article investigates processes underlying the production of culture through the example of a Star Worshipping Festival staged by a tourism company in a Shanxi mountain village. Regional political economy, historical knowledge, and ritual practices underlie strategies of development that transformed the entire village into a new cultural product revolving around Ancient Fortress culture. Despite a shared vision of culture as a resource, conflicting spheres of interest emerged between villagers and the drivers of development. A tourism company selectively mobilized aspects of villagers’ cultural practices to create a historical narrative legitimizing Ancient Fortress culture. By promoting Star Worshipping as a cultural display, the tour company projected Ancient Fortress culture onto the entire village, thereby denying villagers the capacity to stake claims over the present profits and future governance of this new cultural product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]