I use the imperfect but u seful concept of the Environmental Kuznets Curve to analyze the prospects f or solving the environmental problems now facing China. The talk uses a wi de range of historical statistics to classify these problems according to a heuristic “solvability index” based on the biophysical and sociopolitical tractability of these problems\, as well as on the histories of how they ha ve been addressed in countries that have faced them earlier: Japan\, Taiwan \, and the Republic of Korea. In doing so\, I will also present a partial critique of the Environmental Kuznets Curve while affirming its limited uti lity as a heuristic device.

About the Speaker

Professor Stevan Harrell taught China studies\, environmental studies\, and anthropology at the U niversity of Washington for 43 years\, and he has done field research in Ta iwan since 1970 and in Liangshan Sichuan since 1988\, and now he’s retired and lives in Bellingham. His vast publications include numerous articles an d books such as Culture Change in Postwar Taiwan\, Co-edited with Hu ang Chün-chieh (1994)\, Human Families (1997)\, Mountain Patterns : The Survival of Nuosu Culture in China (with Bamo Qubumo and Ma Erzi) (2000)\, Fieldwork Connections: A Story of International Collaboration (with Bamo Ayi and Ma Lunzy) (2007)\, Explorers and Scientists in Ch ina’s Borderlands\, 1880-1950. Co-edited with Denise M. Glover\, Margar et B. Swain\, and Charles F. Mckhann (2011)\, and Transformations of Chi nese Patriarchy (co-edited with Gonçalo Santos) (2016)\, Southwest C hina on the Eve of the Communist Takeover: G. William Skinner’s Field Journ als from Sichuan\, 1949-50. (co-edited with William Lavely) (forthcomin g\, 2017).

This event is co-spo nsored by UBC Centre for Chinese Research\; UBC Department of History< /p>

Abstract

About the Speaker

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