Borderland Infrastructures: Trade, Development, and Control in Western China

Alessandro Rippa

Open Access Published by Amsterdam University Press 2020

Borderland Infrastructures

Trade, Development, and Control in Western China

Alessandro Rippa
In collaboration with: Willem Schendel and Tina Harris

Volume 12 in the series Asian Borderlands

https://doi.org/10.1515/9789048543564

Overview
Contents

About this book

Across the Chinese borderlands, investments in large-scale transnational infrastructure such as roads and special economic zones have increased exponentially over the past two decades. Based on long-term ethnographic research, Borderland infrastructures. Trade, Development, and Control in Western China addresses a major contradiction at the heart of this fast-paced development: small-scale traders have lost their historic strategic advantages under the growth of massive Chinese state investment and are now struggling to keep their businesses afloat. Concurrently, local ethnic minorities have become the target of radical resettlement projects, securitization, and tourism initiatives, and have in many cases grown increasingly dependent on state subsidies. At the juncture of anthropological explorations of the state, border studies, and research on transnational trade and infrastructure development, Borderland infrastructures provides new analytical tools to understand how state power is experienced, mediated, and enacted in Xinjiang and Yunnan. In the process, Rippa offers a rich and nuanced ethnography of life across China's peripheries.

Author / Editor information

Rippa Alessandro :

Alessandro Rippa is Associate Professor of Chinese Studies at Tallinn University and "freigeist" Fellow (2020-2025) at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, LMU Munich.

Reviews

"Borderland Infrastructures is essential reading for anyone interested in BRI, infrastructure. [...] Ethnographically rich and theoretically engaging, the book will be particularly useful to anthropologists, geographers, and other social scientists invested in better understanding the uneven contours of China’s contemporary regional ambitions."
- Geoffrey Aung, Eurasian Geography and Economics, April 2021

Topics

Frontmatter Open Access Download PDF	1
Table of Contents Open Access Download PDF	5
Acknowledgements Open Access Download PDF	9
Introduction Open Access Download PDF	11
Part 1. Proximity
1 Connections Open Access Download PDF	35
Interlude — proximity Open Access Download PDF	67
2 Bridgehead Open Access Download PDF	73
Coda Open Access Download PDF	105
Part 2 Curation
3 Dependency Open Access Download PDF	109
Interlude — curation Open Access Download PDF	137
4 Heritage Open Access Download PDF	143
Coda Open Access Download PDF	169
Part 3 Corridor
5 Control Open Access Download PDF	173
Interlude — corridor Open Access Download PDF	205
6 (Il)Licitness Open Access Download PDF	213
Coda Open Access Download PDF	237
Conclusion Open Access Download PDF	241
Bibliography Open Access Download PDF	253
Index Open Access Download PDF	279

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 282
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 22
Keywords: China; Border studies; Anthropology; Infrastructure; Belt and Road Initiative.

eBook

Published: September 11, 2020
ISBN: 9789048543564