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Inter-area/Border Crossing
Organized Panel Session
How did modern states, with rational planning or strategic exploitation of natural resources, directly or indirectly induce geographical or environmental changes? How about the scales of spatial change? Drawing on the disciplines of history, history of science, and anthropology, this panel considers environmental changes in China and Indonesia across the twentieth century. It is organized by two concerns: one temporal, one spatial. First, it examines how human activities have produced environmental change across time from the colonial and socialist periods to the present day in Indonesia and China. Second, it explores how considering China and Indonesia in relation to one another might open new avenues for analysis of the ways different regimes have modified social and ecological systems to meet political goals.
Van Der Meer examines the construction of mountain resorts in colonial Indonesia, which reflected colonial superiority and an increased emphasis on the European lifestyle. Gao explores China’s development of rural aquaculture along the coasts under high socialism, and its implications for social relations and gender dynamics in Chinese villages. Jiang focuses on the fish-rice integrated system in mountain villages in reform-era China, and examines its relationship to the Chinese socialist legacies, international intervention, and social ecological worlds. Bogart traces the rise of “state salt” in contemporary Indonesia initiated by the central government, and examines its implications for coastal wetland ecosystems and rural communities.
Xiaofei Gao
Harvard University
Minghui Hu
University of California, Santa Cruz
Xiaofei Gao
Harvard University
Lijing Jiang
Colby College
Arnout van der Meer
Colby College
Gillian Bogart
University of California, Santa Cruz
Michitake Aso
University at Albany, State University of New York