Industrial Pollution and Environmental Health in Rural China: Risk, Uncertainty and Individualization
The China Quarterlyhttp://journals.cambridge.org/CQY
Bryan Tilt
The China Quarterly / Volume 214 / June 2013, pp 283 301
DOI: 10.1017/S0305741013000350, Published online: 14 May 2013
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0305741013000350
How to cite this article:
Bryan Tilt (2013). Industrial Pollution and Environmental Health in Rural China: Risk,
Uncertainty and Individualization. The China Quarterly, 214, pp 283301 doi:10.1017/
S0305741013000350
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Industrial Pollution and Environmental
Health in Rural China: Risk, Uncertainty
and Individualization*
Bryan Tilt†
Abstract
After more than three decades of extremely rapid industrial growth, China
faces an environmental public health crisis. In this article, I examine pol-
lution in the rural industrial sector and its implications for community
health. Drawing on recent ethnographic research in an industrial township
in rural Sichuan, including interviews with government officials, environ-
mental regulators, industrial workers and local residents, I explore how com-
munity members understand the linkages between air and water pollution
from nearby factories and their health and well-being. The article has two
main goals. The first is to examine the various ways in which uncertainty
about pollution sources, about the severity of pollution levels and about
the links between pollution and human health shapes villagers’experiences
of pollution on a day-to-day basis. The second goal is to examine the rising
trend of “individualization”taking place in China today and explore how
this process is related to people’s experiences of toxic exposure. I consider
the implications of this trend for how social scientists should approach the
study of environmental illness in contemporary China.
Keywords: industrial pollution; environmental health; scientific uncertainty;
individualization; Sichuan; China
China’s meteoric rise on the global economic stage has garnered the attention of
media outlets around the world. So, too, have the epic environmental conse-
quences of this rise. News headlines such as “Pollution turns China village into
cancer cluster”and “Choking on growth”have become routine in recent times.
Most of these stories cite a litany of dismal statistics about the percentage of
China’s rivers receiving poor water quality assessments or the hundreds of thou-
sands of people who die of respiratory illnesses related to air pollution each year.
* Funding for this research project was provided by the US National Science Foundation’s Cultural
Anthropology Division (Grant #0210178). I would also like to thank the participants of the symposium entitled “Choking on what? Contested illnesses, pollution and the making of environmental health sub-jects in contemporary China,The China Quarterlyhttp://journals.cambridge.org/CQY
Pollution and Protest in China: Environmental
Yanhua Deng and Guobin Yang
The China Quarterly / Volume 214 / June 2013, pp 321 336
DOI: 10.1017/S0305741013000659, Published online: 25 June 2013
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0305741013000659
How to cite this article:
Yanhua Deng and Guobin Yang (2013). Pollution and Protest in China:
Environmental Mobilization in Context. The China Quarterly, 214, pp 321336
doi:10.1017/S0305741013000659
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Pollution and Protest in China:
Environmental Mobilization in Context*
Yanhua Deng†and Guobin Yang‡
Abstract
This article focuses on environmental controversy in a Chinese rural com-
munity. It shows that Chinese villagers may protest against anticipated pol-
lution if the environmental threat is effectively framed. In the face of real
and serious pollution, villagers may seek to redress environmental grievances
by piggybacking on politically favourable issues. However, when the pol-
lution is caused by fellow villagers, environmentally concerned villagers
may remain silent owing to the constraints of community relations and econ-
omic dependency. These findings suggest that the relationship between pol-
lution and protest is context-dependent.
Keywords:framing; issue piggybacking; political opportunity; community
relations; economic dependency; China
In 2005, farmers in Huaxi 画溪,1 Zhejiang province, forced 11 polluting factories
off their land.2 Initially, they had challenged the potential polluters in antici-
pation of future pollution problems. Later, when the polluting factories moved
to their community and began to cause the expected damage, the villagers con-
tinued to protest, but strangely their claims were mainly land-related rather
than environmental. In contrast, Huaxi has long had a cottage industry of recy-
cling plastic waste, which was a major source of pollution, yet the villagers had
never staged a protest. These puzzling phenomena raise questions about the
relationship between pollution and protest. Why did Huaxi villagers protest
against anticipated pollution? Later, why did the aggrieved villagers mainly
* The authors thank Anna Lora-Wainwright and Jennifer Holdaway for their helpful comments.
Generous financial support was provided to the first author by the China National Social Sciences
2 For media reports on the Huaxi environmental contention, see Song 2005; Markus
