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SUMMARY:China’s Camel Country: Livestock and Nation-Building at a Pastor
 al Frontier - Tom White\, Kings College London
DTSTART:20241127T140000Z
DTEND:20241127T150000Z
UID:TALK223138@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Tom Fry
DESCRIPTION:China today positions itself as a model of state-led environme
 ntalism. On the country’s arid rangelands\, grassland conservation polic
 ies have targeted pastoralists and their animals\, blamed for causing dese
 rtification. State environmentalism—in the form of grazing bans\, enclos
 ure\, and resettlement—has transformed the lives of many ethnic minority
  herders in China’s western borderlands. In this talk I show such polici
 es have been contested and negotiated on the ground\, in the context of th
 e state’s intensifying nation-building project. Drawing on ethnographic 
 fieldwork in Alasha\, in the far west of China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomo
 us Region\, I describe how ethnic Mongols have foregrounded the local bree
 d of Bactrian camel\, mobilizing ideas of heritage and resource conservati
 on to defend pastoralism. Demonstrating how the much-vaunted greening of t
 he Chinese state affects the entangled lives of humans and animals at the 
 margins of the nation-state\, this talk addresses critical questions of ru
 ral livelihoods\, conservation\, and state power.
LOCATION:Department of Geography\, Small Lecture Theatre
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