Global Concern, Local Solutions: Community, Development, and Eco-politics in East Asia

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel Proposal Application

Abstract

In response to third wave ecocriticism, which calls for more politically engaged, international-nativist ecocritical and cross-disciplinary dialog, this panel centers on China and Japan to explore their stories of community, development and ecodegradation. Inspired by the recent volume Ecoambiguity, Community, and Development: Toward a Politicized Ecocriticism (2004), our panel extends the focus to include Taiwanese perspectives, contributing to what Patrick Murphy calls "heterarchy ecocriticism"--a form of ecocritical praxis that allows perspectives of the Other and sense of responsibility to emerge.

In a nutshell, the four seemingly diverse presentations share underlying themes relating to myth-making and debunking of the grand narrative of development, and actively seek out solutions to the questions they address. Huei-chu Chu discusses how the myth of nuclear energy promoted by governments is undermined through literary intervention, using Tsushima Yuko’s novel The Wildcat Dome (2013) as a case in point. Song Tian places the narrative of global capitalism under the rubric of modern mythmaking and argues against a reconciliatory position between development and sustainability. In addressing local, indigenous people's resistance to development, Yih-Ren Lin turns to the national park called “Maqaw,” a domain of Taiwan's aboriginal people, and examines how they engage the global discourse of nature conservation and transform its meaning for the purpose of constructing their cultural identity in the local context. Finally, the Taiwanese animal activist Yuan-Chih Lung demystifies a natural phenomenon appropriated to construct narratives of panda protection in China from a science and technology studies (STS) perspective.

Area of Study

• China and Inner Asia

Session Organizer

• Chia-ju Chang, Brooklyn College

Chair

• Chia-ju Chang, Brooklyn College

Individual Presentations

• The Dilemma of the Downstream: Between Survival Crisis and Ecological Crisis - Tian Song, Beijing Normal University

• Connecting Fukushima to Hiroshima and Okinawa: Nuclear Disaster and Global Politics in East Asia - Huei-chu Chu, National Chung Hsing University

• Nature Conservation as a Process of Glocalization: A Case from Taiwan’s Indigenous Environmental Movement - Yih-ren Lin, Taipei Medical University

• An STS Case Study on the 1980 "Bamboo Blossom" and "Rescue Giant Panda" Movements - Yuan-chih Lung, (Beijing) Tsinghua University Institute of Science, Technology and Society

Discussant

• Chia-ju Chang, Brooklyn College