Anna Lora-Wainwright - Resigned Activism: Living with Pollution in Rural China

Urban and Industrial Environments

Series editor: Robert Gottlieb, Henry R. Luce Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy, Occidental College

For a complete list of books published in this series, please see the back of the book.

2021 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.

This book was set in ITC Stone Sans Std and ITC Stone Serif Std by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lora-Wainwright, Anna, 1979 author.

Title: Resigned activism : living with pollution in rural China / Anna Lora-Wainwright.

Description: Revised edition. | Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2021] | Series: Urban and industrial environments | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020033738 | ISBN 9780262542494 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: PollutionHealth aspectsChina. | Environmental policyChinaCitizen participation. | Rural healthChina. | Rural developmentEnvironmental aspectsChina. | ChinaRural conditions.

Classification: LCC TD187.5.C6 L67 2021 | DDC 363.730951/091734dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033738

d_r0

A Leon, Robin, e Luca

1. Chapter 6

1. Chapter 3
2. Chapter 4
3. Chapter 5
4. Appendix

• Photographs were taken by the author unless otherwise stated.
• Birds-eye view of some of Baocuns local industries, 2009.
• Home of a member of the local elite, 2009.
• Living quarter for skilled workers, 2009.
• Birthday party at a migrants home, 2009. Photo by the research team.
• Migrant housing in the shantytown, 2009. Photo by the research team.
• Interior of a migrant familys home, 2009.
• Part of the former state-owned mine in Qiancun, 2010.
• A tailing pond resulting from decades of mineral processing, 2010. Fengcun village is to the right, below the tailing pond.
• Small temple to the Earth God by the entrance to a private mine shaft, 2010.
• A blocked mine shaft in the wake of the mining ban, 2010.
• The resilience of private mining: minerals deposited outside the nearby shaft to be sorted by quality, 2010.
• Local women select recently extracted minerals, 2010.
• Locals maintaining alternative livelihoods: tobacco growing, 2010.
• Attempts to gather drinking water in Fengcun, 2012.
• Pilot interviews in Qiancun, 2010. Photo by Jixia Lu.
• Everyday life in Qiancun, washing clothes at the local well, 2010. Photo by Jingfang Lu.
• Juanjuans brothers storeroom, 2013.
• Lindis workshop, 2013.
• Lindis sorted CD cases, 2013.
• Lindis CD parts, ready for trade, 2013.
• Dismantled CD cases, ready to be traded by weight, 2013.
• Discarded air conditioners, 2012.
• Metal parts, disassembled and ready for trade, 2012.
• Juanjuans home, 2013.
• Birds-eye view of Guos workshop, 2012.
• Recycled capacitors being recharged, 2012.
• Recycled capacitors wrapped in new covers, 2012.
• Table: Factors influencing rural activism and their effects.
• Map of China and location of fieldsites.

The research projects that form the substance of this book involved collaborative efforts in collecting and making sense of data. In light of this, I would like to gratefully acknowledge the intellectual contribution of collaborators in each of the projects from which this book evolved in helping to shape my approach and analysis. Coproduction of knowledge in collaborative research involves an iterative process of data collection and refinement of research questions, alongside discussions that contribute to the analysis of data and an understanding of the secondary literature. All these elements played an important role in preparation for the writing of this book.

I have genuinely treasured the opportunity to collaborate with all colleagues and researchers involved in each of the sites discussed and to learn from the inspiring work of Professor Ajiang Chen and his team, published in their monograph Cancer Village Research: Understanding and Responding to Environmental Health Risks (Chen et al. 2013). Indeed, I hope that the summaries of case studies from their book, which I provide in chapter 2, may help to promote their important work beyond readers of Chinese.

I was therefore deeply shocked that some former collaborators, members and directors of the China-based Forum for Health, Environment and Development (FORHEAD), made a complaint against the first edition of this book, alleging that it did not sufficiently acknowledge their work, or that I had failed to consult them in the lead up to publication. Their complaint was thoroughly investigated by the University of Oxford. The Universitys investigation and its full report are confidential, but the reason for this revised edition is that the investigation panel determined that changes should be made to provide appropriate acknowledgments. I can add, with gratitude, that the panel found my omissions to have been unintentional.

I have taken the concerns raised extremely seriously and I have done my very best to address them in this revised edition. The changes that have been implemented in this edition of the book were reviewed and approved by two independent anonymous reviewers in light of the complaint. I am extremely grateful to the reviewers for their time and their additional suggestions. The changes to the new edition include clearer attribution of interviews and the provision of additional references to other works by research collaborators, as well as closer in-text references throughout chapter 2 to the volume by Chen and colleagues. Each chapter now states clearly at the outset how it is based on specific collaborations. I would also like to draw readers attention to the expanded appendix, which gives a full account of the role of collaborators in the project, how we worked together to refine research questions, and how this fed into the analytical insights that we developed.

I would like to reassure readers that I have given all criticisms very detailed thought and that any oversights or inaccuracies were and are entirely unintentional on my part. I will treasure the many lessons I have learned through this process and take them with me in all my ongoing and future projects.

In closing, I wish to emphasize that my reasons for writing this book are rooted above all in a commitment to better understand the complex experiences of those who live with chronic pollution. I also hope this work will contribute to more conceptual interdisciplinary dialogues on environmental justice and on agency among those who are seemingly silent or powerless.

Pollution appears to be a persistent and pervasive ingredient of many of our lives. In 2016, my native province, Vicenza (Italy), was the subject of intense debate after a study revealed sixty thousand people were poisoned by polluted water. London, where I currently live, routinely makes the news for exceeding EU limits on air pollution. News items on pollution in China are almost too frequent to follow. But, of course, pollution does not touch all of us in the same way. Doing research on such a complex and sensitive topic in China required time, patience, and perseverance. There were times when I wondered whether this book would ever materialize. That it did is only thanks to all the support I have received from so many individuals and institutions.