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Environmental Winds
Making the Global in Southwest China
Environmental Winds challenges the notion that globalized social formations emerged solely in the Global North prior to impacting the Global South. Instead, such formations have been constituted, transformed, and propelled through diverse, site-specific social interactions that complicate and defy divisions between 'global' and 'local.'
The book brings the reader into the lives of Chinese scientists, officials, villagers, and expatriate conservationists who were caught up in environmental trends over the past 25 years. Hathaway reveals how global environmentalism has been enacted and altered in China, often with unanticipated effects, such as the rise of indigenous rights, or the reconfiguration of human/animal relationships, fostering what rural villagers refer to as “the revenge of wild elephants.”
Praise
"A well-crafted and lucidly written book. . . . Its delightful ethnographic insights and sharp concepts will be of great value in introducing . . . new ways of thinking about China."
—Journal of Historical Geography
"Theoretically nuanced, empirically grounded, and written in accessible prose."
—The China Quarterly
"Environmental Winds is a highly original and valuable contribution to international scholarly discussions of how global social movements work. By conceptualizing such movements as "winds", Hathaway offers a new way of looking at globalization that is illuminating not only for China but worldwide."
—Vanessa Fong, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Amherst College
"Hathaway's concept of "winds" to study changing political fashions in China, and beyond, is inspired. The book is a bright flare in the topic of political ecology that, after a decade and a half of brilliant insights, had begun to lose its edge. This is a promising approach that could revitalize the whole field."
—Anna Tsing, author of Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection
"The story ranges from the global 1960s, touching on China’s role in the anticolonial movement in Africa and feminist movement beyond, through the establishment of the first transnational conservation efforts in Yunnan in the 1980s, and into the shaping of global environmental efforts by an indigenous rights movement in the 1990s. It is a fascinating story that will be of interest to both Chinese and environmental studies."
—Carla Nappi, host of New Books in East Asian Studies podcast
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