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Political Ecology View In The Riverhead Of The Yellow River Ecological Imagery And Disputes

Posted on:2013-09-05Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:X Y LiFull Text:PDF
GTID:1221330395990129Subject:Anthropology
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It has become one of trends in anthropology to focus on environmental issues in the perspective of political ecology. The Chinese government introduced a new programme, known as "retire livestock and restore grassland"(tuimu huancao), which called for grazing removal in order to halt and reverse severe grassland degradation. At the same time, ecological resettlement programme was introduced to separate the local nomads from the grassland at Three River Source.This thesis focuses on Tibetan grassland in Yellow River Source, and analyzes the cultural reflection, political power and the tension of different discourses behind the environmental programmes. The core question is how tuimu huancao and ecological resettlement programs have been performed, and what purpose and meaning for? Are nomadic herdsmen grassland’s guardians or the destroyers?There are three important perspectives for the theoretical framework in political ecology. Firstly, social construction means different cultures can construct different landscapes in the same area, and different understandings also can reflect the diversity of cultural background and systems of knowledge.Secondly, anthropologists try to analyze the political power and the inequality of resource distribution, the environmental event in Yellow River Source is very complicated and sensitive, nomadic herdsmen tried to express their ideas and their benefits by informal ways as James Prescott has mentioned in the Weapon of the Weak, in the case, the tension and quotes between national and local discourses reflect a complicated view of political ecology.Thirdly, the discourse of development has been used in post-modern and post-colonial period, herdsmen were influenced and educated by the discourse of marketization, and enjoyed the mixed culture, that is on the one hand, nomadic people can’t live without cash and have to find more job opportunities to survive, on the other hand, they try to keep the traditional culture and community structures.However, it is not easy to understand the essence of development; we need to ask what the intrinsic motivation of the projects is, is it for the environment or for the economic growth of the middle and lower reaches of Yellow River?The basic data of thesis comes from my four fieldworks in seven months, and lots of rich materials are based on participatory observation and literature collection.Chapter1pays attention on the international controversy on Tibetan environmental event between Chinese government and Free Tibet, and then analyzes three theoretical perspectives of political ecology and the literature review in international and domestic academics. This chapter explores the different understandings and cultural background in the national and local levels, the political power and the complicated tension were observed, and we can see how the discourse of development influenced the local social economy and environment.Chapters2and3present the history how Yellow River became the important Mother River for Chinese people. In the ancicent history, people feared and respected the river god; the definition of the great mother was used at the period of the Republic of China in Chinese Mainland, the Anti-Japanese War played a key role in the transition of meaning. After October1949, the related narrative had been repeated and deepened. A decade ago, people were conscious of the environmental crisis in Yellow River basin when the environmental issues of pollution and drought came out; it was serious and terrible for the whole China. Later people were surprised and worried about the water when the Yellow River source was running dry, people who cared about the risk called for the effective measure of protection,"National Nature Reserve of Three Rivers Source" was set up by the central government to protect the water resourses in2004.Chapters4,5and6introduce the history of Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai Province in50years. Chapter4focusses on geography, religion and traditional culture, chapter5and6clearly show the grassland under traditional discourse at Yellow River source how to be changed by the discourse of development. In the1980s, Maduo County has been the the richest one in the all counries of China, is it a ture reality or just a myth? With the development of market economy, the stronger discourse of development arose in the nomadic communities, and herdsmen been educated by the market economy. At the last, a new mixed culture has been developed in Goolg area.Chapter7explores the discourse of environmental protection which came out after the environmental crisis; Chinese government performed the largest ecological project in grassland to against overgrazing, tuimu hnancao and ecological resettlement projects were implemented in a large scale. This chapter tries to analyze the paradigm of ecological balance on grassland which is based on the discourse of development. Behind the official envirmental discourse, the purpose is to bring more economical opportunities to the middle and lower river basin.Chapters8and9show the huge change for ecological migrants from herdsmen to workers in town. The local people expressed their complains and memories about the traditional nomadic ways of life in private. We can see the villagers how to use the informal ways to against the mainstream in daily life, an they how to quote the government’s discourses to get better benefits.Chapter10responds four questions which are menioned in chapterl. The concept of essentialism assumes that the phycial environment and the traditional life have never been changed, but now this idea should be corrected, people should rethink the discourse of development and modernization as soon as quickly, if not, for the wide minority areas, the future will be worse and more tragic.In brief, although this thesis analyzes the complicated environmental event, its purpose is not to deny the efforts of tuimu huancao and ecological resettlement programmers. On the contrary, this research tries to show different cultural meanings and environmental discourses, at the same time, hope it can remind people to find the best way to face and solve the environmental problems in the realistic domestic background, and enhance a good communication and understanding between different groups.
Keywords/Search Tags:Political ecology, Yellow River Source, the imaginationof ecology, political tension
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