More than Fragmented, Not yet a Movement: Waste Incineration and Environmental Contention in China

• In Event: Chinese Environmental Protests Linking Up: Towards a Broader Environmental Movement?

Abstract

Faced with a severe waste crisis, the Chinese government has in recent years turned to waste incineration as primary solution for China’s waste problems. Incinerator projects that are mounting all over the country are, however, met with growing opposition from both local communities and environmental organizations and individuals. While Chinese protest events have long been regarded as mostly localized and parochial, and while local environmental contention and environmentalist campaigns have largely been analyzed as two separate phenomena, a closer look at the collective opposition against waste incineration reveals that not only are major linkages and diffusion processes at play between different affected communities, but that environmental organizations and individuals also play an increasingly important role at the local level, both as brokers between different localities and in individual cases. Based on several months of field research, this paper draws out these linkages and diffusion processes and reveals a dense network of ties between different local communities and with environmentalists at the supra-local level. It also shows, however, the limitations for the emergence of a broader environmental movement in China.

Author

• Maria Bondes, GIGA Institute of Asian Studies