Facing increasingly pressing environment- and climate-related challenges, the Chinese state and government actively respond by introducing policies and measures targeting both everyday problems and emergencies. How do people experience and react to state-led environmental and climate governance? When, why, and how do they participate and not participate in state-led governance? What do they do when they choose not to participate in such governance? Lu Chen concludes that state-led environmental and disaster governance facilitated some people’s engagement, but also led to disengagement responses. In conjunction with disengagement, some built solidarity of informal groups and took alternative practices.
Based on seven months of ethnographic fieldwork and follow-up interviews in four villages and one faith-based organisation in East China. Lu examines local actors’ diverse responses towards, and their lived experiences of environmental and climate challenges, ranging from domestic waste, extreme weather and landslide-induced floods to tap-water-related risks. Her research aims to contribute to the fields of environmental anthropology and China studies, considering both the prevalent presence of the state in local China and the increasing challenges that people are facing.
Trial lecture
Designated topic: "The Place Of China In Global Sustainability Initiatives"
Tuesday 18 June 2024, 10.15 am Auditorium 2, Sophus Bugges hus
Evaluation committee
- Professor Anna Lora-Wainwright, University of Oxford (first opponent)
- Assistant Professor Andrea Pia, London School of Economics (second opponent)
- Professor II Anna Lisa Ahlers, University of Oslo (committee administrator)
Chair of the defence
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Professor Jacob Høigilt, University of Oslo
Supervisor
- Professor Mette Halskov Hansen, University of Oslo
- Professor Zhaohui Liu, Department of Sociology, Zhejiang University