School of Geography - Theses
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ItemChina's South to North Water Transfer Project: the institutional response to the operation of the middle route( 2017)As a result of the increasing scarcity of water resources, inter-basin water transfer projects are implemented worldwide because they provide a supply-oriented, production-focus approach of reallocating water resources. China's South to North Water Transfer (SNWT) project is known as one of the world's largest inter-basin water transfer (IBWT) projects, which inevitably requires solid institutional supports in construction and operation stage due to massive economic and social cost. Under China's peculiar Fragmented Authoritarianism structure, the institutional management of the SNWT project is a reflective tool in analyzing the current political changes within the water sector in a contemporary era. However, in contrast to the abundant studies on technical and engineering perspectives of the SNWT project, the institutional responses to the operation of this project remain little understood. Focusing on the operation of the Middle Route of the SNWT project, in this study I adopt a case study approach, supplemented by qualitative methodologies include document analysis and semi-structure interviews to explore current institutional arrangement of the SNWT project and its dynamic working mechanisms. This thesis finds out that although China's political structure is still characterized with Fragmented Authoritarianism features, an increasing level of inter-departmental cooperation and a more market-oriented guiding ideology were found in the institutional arrangement of SNWT Middle Route Project. This essay concludes that the Fragmented Authoritarianism could be overcome by integrated management as a result of efficient interdepartmental cooperation. Yet, there are both old and new institutional problems existing in this newly formed arrangement where further considerations should be addressed.
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ItemPrecision poverty alleviation in China dynamic interactions between local officials and poverty households( 2017)Precision Poverty Alleviation' (PPA) is the Chinese government's latest antipoverty policy, aiming to lift the remaining 70 million Chinese citizens above the poverty line by 2020. Under the PPA scheme, every poverty household is paired one-on-one with a local government official, who then bears responsibility for the eradication of their poverty circumstances. PPA mitigates a number of the shortcomings of China's past poverty alleviation policies, including government corruption, misdirection of funds, and failure to target the truly impoverished. This study examines how the pairings between local officials and poverty households operate within this poverty reduction scheme, and also explores the outcomes of these dynamic interactions for poverty reduction, based on nineteen in-depth, semistructured interviews with PPA households. Fieldwork was conducted in poverty villages in Shaanxi province, China - one of the nation's fourteen 'contiguous poverty-stricken areas', and where pro-poor tourism is operating as the primary anti-poverty strategy. Using a multidimensional index of poverty, PPA was found to be more effective when poor households are actively engaged with their poverty alleviation process, and/or when they are paired with a high-ranking local official who is able to mobilise social and financial resources. This finding has implications for making PPA more precise, and also contributes to the wider literature on poverty conceptualisation and alleviation.
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ItemChina’s intra-rural migration and its influence on rural modes of production: a case study of Lian Hua Village, Hunan province( 2019)This thesis aims to understand how intra-rural migration is associated with changes to the production activities of migrants in rural China. Extant research on intra-rural migration is highly limited. Moreover, the majority of studies on migration were conducted from an individual or household perspective and fail to directly reveal the influence of migration on rural production. In order to provide more evidences of intra-rural migration and its influence on rural production of migrants, this thesis tries to address three research questions: 1. What changes occurred in the production activities in which migrants partake? 2. What factors prompted migrants to escape their previous production activities and initiate emerging production activities? 3. How did intra-rural migration connect the escape and initiation process? This thesis examines intra-rural migration with a focus on changes to the production activities of migrants and posits that intra-rural migration influences rural production activities of migrants by mediating their access to production factors and changing production conditions they faced. This thesis primarily uses qualitative methods to collect and analyse data. Semi-structured interviews and direct observation was utilised in a case study of Lian Hua Village which is situated in Hunan Province. This thesis finds that intra-rural migration helps destroy the persistence of self-sufficient production activities remained in rural areas in post-reform China, and post-migration production activities of intra-rural migrants are capitalised from whichever aspect of their production. Separation of labour and the means of production and combination of labour and capital are the ultimate reasons prompting capitalisation of production activities of intra-rural migrants. Intra-rural migration acts as a bridge connecting the process of separation and combination. It is concluded that intra-rural migration leads to rural capitalisation and proletarianisation, and that rural labour chases capital. Both are important yet neglected means of realising the transformation of modes of production in rural China.
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ItemMoney, markets and hydropower: Chinese dam construction in Africa( 2017)This thesis aims to clarify the formation of goals, practices and consequences of Chinese outward investment, through the lens of the Chinese government’s and corporations’ engagement in African dam construction. To achieve this aim, three research questions are addressed: 1 how do Chinese actors form their goals in investing in African dam construction? 2 how are the Chinese practices in Africa related to these goals? and 3 what are the consequences of the Chinese practices? Considering China’s (re-)emergence in the neoliberal world, this thesis probes Chinese overseas investment with an eye to their spending of money, energy and time; and posits the Chinese government and corporations as both central to address the research aim. Starting from a genealogy of the shaping of the Chinese dam construction industry, this thesis applies a technopolitical approach to disentangling the historical, technical, political, social and environmental complexity associated with dams and proceeds with a life cycle analysis of a specific project in Africa, which is financed and built by Chinese actors – the Bui dam construction in Ghana. Informed by qualitative data collected from open sources and fieldwork mainly in Beijing, Accra and Bui, the thesis finds that investing in African dam construction, the Chinese government and corporations have divergent priorities but interlocking goals, but the formations of the goals of Chinese actors affect each other; and that although their practices are mainly informed by their goals, the Chinese activities overseas are affected and challenged by the interplay with external technocratic and political influences which sometimes lead to uncertain consequences. Therefore, the Chinese overseas investment is an artefact of the world’s geographically uneven process of neoliberalization, which at the project level reflects not merely a matter of “China” or the “Chinese”, but of the sophisticated interweaving of relations and interactions between the Chinese, international and the recipient country actors, evolving in a path-dependent way.