Elizabeth Lord - Narratives of China's Environment: Crisis, Hope and the Spatiality of Blame

The third talk of the semester in the East Asia Colloquium series is by Elizabeth Lord of Brown University, entitled "Narratives of China's Environment: Crisis, Hope and the Spatiality of Blame" on Thursday, March 14, from 12 to 1:30 pm in Gerard House 101. Lunch will be provided. The abstract for the event, as well as Elizabeth Lord's bio, is provided below.

 

Narratives of China's Environment: Crisis, Hope and the Spatiality of Blame

Elizabeth Lord, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Environment and Society, Brown University

 

This project examines narratives that are mobilized to understand China’s contemporary environment. It exploresprominent ways to represent and rationalize China’s environmental questions, and dwells on the implications and the spatialities of each. More specifically, the project focuses on the crisis narrative, on the idea that China may be an eco-leader, and on how environmental blame is directed towards China. Through these narratives, I ask whether environmental scholars are recasting—or‘environmentalizing’—an orientalist gaze. At stake is the necessity to discuss real and severe environmental problems without pathologizing a rising China, and the need to unpack the politics of environmental knowledge production at a time of ecological stress.

 

Elizabeth Lord studies the politics of environmental knowledge production and the effects of China’s environmental policies on inequality. She graduated from the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto in 2017, was an An Wang postdoctoral fellow at Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, and is now a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society. She has lived three years in China and has conducted environmental research in Zhejiang, Hubei and Shaanxi.

 

If you would like to attend the event, please RSVP by filling out this form by Monday, March 11th, at noon. The form is also available at www.tinyurl.com/EACLord. We appreciate your cooperation in helping us get an accurate headcount and dietary information for the talk.