China's Camel Country
Livestock and Nation-Building at a Pastoral Frontier
Thomas White author K Sivaramakrishnan editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:University of Washington Press
Published:27th Aug '24
Should be back in stock very soon
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£107.95(9780295752426)
How animal conservation became a defense against cultural erasureChina today positions itself as a model of state-led environmentalism. On the country’s arid rangelands, grassland conservation policies have targeted pastoralists and their animals, blamed for causing desertification. State environmentalism—in the form of grazing bans, enclosure, and resettlement—has transformed the lives of many ethnic minority herders in China’s western borderlands.
However, this book shows how such policies have been contested and negotiated on the ground, in the context of the state’s intensifying nation-building project. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Alasha, in the far west of China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Thomas White describes how ethnic Mongols have foregrounded the local breed of Bactrian camel, mobilizing ideas of heritage and resource conservation to defend pastoralism.
In exploring how the greening of the Chinese state affects the entangled lives of humans and animals at the margins of the nation-state, this study is both a political biography of the Bactrian camel and an innovative work of political ecology addressing critical questions of rural livelihoods, conservation, and state power.
"China's Camel Country is a rich exploration of how people in rural Alasha are using China's development discourse and political economy to negotiate their future. Again and again, White shows how Chinese state and market policies and pressures work at cross-purposes, creating opportunities but also stymieing success in any one direction. His sensitive portrait of Alasha in contemporary transition will draw comparison not just with other areas in China, but also with Inner Mongolia's past. . . . [A]n invaluable portrait of rural Mongolia life in modern China."
* China Quarterly *"[P]resents a fascinating look at an understudied and difficult-to-access region of Inner Mongolia. The book greatly advances not only the study of China's Inner Asian regions but also presents a solid foundation on which anthropologists can explore how China's new outward facing narrative is affecting other frontier and minority cultures throughout the nation."
* China Journal *"China's Camel Country offers a unique insight into three decades of complex developments in China's pastoral economy, highlighting issues of ethnicity within China's nation-building endeavour. . . . Fascinating and appealing to a wide range of audiences, this book is a must read for anyone trying to understand the complexity of pastoral life at China's margin and beyond."
* Asian Affairs *"[A] welcome addition and unique contribution to the growing literature about people the state has categorized as ethnic minority groups in modern and contemporary China. . . . The book immerses the reader in the physical and social space of Alasha League."
* Journal of Asian StudiISBN: 9780295752433
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 386g
264 pages