Environmental and Not In My Back-Yard Protests in China

Despite its remarkable economic growth since the 1980s, China has paid a terrible price for its unequal development. Lately, environmental degradation, among numerous other issues, intensifies social unrest. While environmental scandals did not make the headlines until a few years ago, recent protests, like those in Shifang and Qidong in the summer of 2012, are making environmental (and related health) issues the subject of mass political action in contemporary China.

Through documentary analysis and review of written sources Dr. Grano will analyze both NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) as well as environmental campaigns that have crossed the divide from cyberspace to become real-life, physical protests. The case studies will illustrate how the internet is shaping social movements and their action repertoire with novel forms of networking and creative practices of expression. Furthermore, while environmentalism was initially a small-scale phenomenon with no implications nor challenges for the political system the violence of recent protests, directed at the siting of polluting facilities on part of an increasingly ecologically aware middle-class in urban areas, prompts the question as to whether this is a new kind of environmentalism emerging, with different expectations and a potentially wider scope, which could threaten China’s present political configuration.