Man and Nature in China: Gender, Natural Resources Management and the Chinese State in an Inner Mongolia Village

The process of China’s rural modernization over the past half-century was punctuated by an ambitious attempt to transform the natural environment. “Wars against nature “ were a nationwide characteristic in rural China during the collective period. After decollectivization, rather than being reversed, overexploitation of nature intensified due to rapid economic development and increased inequality. Meanwhile, the rhetoric of “man can conquer nature” was replaced by “rehabilitate beautiful landscapes,” seeming to embody a shifting conceptualization of people’s relationship to nature. In the background of the twin campaigns of “war against nature” and “rebuilding beautiful landscapes,” this book provides a first-hand understanding of natural resource management and environment changes from a gender perspective in the context of larger economic and ecological transformations in a peasant community in Inner Mongolia over the past five decades. It examines how village men and women managed, viewed and negotiated environmental resources in their everyday lives along lines of wealth, ethnicity, age, marriage status, and livelihood. The ethnographic methodology of this study triangulates complementary qualitative and quantitative techniques of participant observation, informal conversations, in-depth interviews, oral histories and life stories, with household census and survey, archival materials, and local government statistics and documents.

Table of Contents:
Chapter One Engendering Rural Development and Environmental Changes Rural Modernization, Ecological Legacy and Gender Contested Terrain: Gender, Natural Resources Management and Institutional Matrixes Major Structure Chapter Two The Politics of Fieldwork The Site Selection The Initial Visits An Ethnographic Gaze: Power in Operation, Power in Transition Chapter Three The Setting: Land and Its People A Peasant Community in Northeastern China A Village in Flux: The Intersections of Class, Gender And Ethnicity Landscape Dynamics and Environmental Challenges Chapter Four?Agrarian Changes and the Crusade against Local Environment Agricultural Collectivization and Itsenvironmental Impact Plunging Into Smallholder Patterns: Agricultural Intensification, Technological Changes and the Gendered Labor Regimes The Livestock Economy in an Ecological Context Chapter Five?Voices from the Grassroots: Gender, Bureaucratic State Power and the Mass Mobilization Conservation Campaign Environmental Action as a Mass Mobilization Conservation Campaign: a Local Tale The History of Mass Conservation Practices in a Peasant Village From Success to Tragedy: The Legacy of a Party Secretary In the Shadow of a New Round of “Development” Chapter Six?The State, Community-based Natural Resource Management and Resistance Politics The State at the Grassroots Level Community-based Natural Resource Management and Its Dilemmas The Powerless Fight Back: Resistance Politics in the Village Everyday Forms of Resistance Chapter Seven?Intra-household Dynamics and Interhousehold Interactions A Shift of Gender and Power in Intra-household Dynamics Inter-household Relationships in Practice Chapter Eight?Market, Off-farm Work and Socio-economic Differentiation: Money Changes Everything The Evolution of the Market as an Institutional Mechanism The Rush to Off- farm Pursuits Emerging Wealth and Poverty through Villagers’ Eyes Chapter Nine?Gender, Conservation, Development: Sustainability Dilemmas Literature Cited

About the Author :
Yukun Hu: Peking University