Environment

This chapter consists of four pieces engaging with the question of society’s interaction with the environment. A case study from Taiwan by Shaw-wu Jung looks at how the creation of a community garden re-engaged the local elderly population with traditional farming methods, while Justyna Jaguscik analyses the literary treatment of food anxiety by two female poets. Adam Liebman takes a historical perspective at waste separation from the Mao period to today, discovering that then and now, the practice is as much about segregating people as it is about segregating different kinds of waste. Jessica Imbach also highlights continuity from the Mao period as she reminds us that the concept of “smart villages” already existed in socialist science fiction from the 1950s and 1960s.

Chapter Contents:

2.1 Embodied Activity and Intimating Environment: A Report from LanCheng, Taiwan
Shaw-wu Jung
2.2 ‘Sometimes We Have Some Toxins’: Eco-Anxiety in Chinese Female-Authored Writing and Cultural Activism
Justyna Jaguscik
2.3 Garbage Bins Are for Containing People Too
Adam Liebman
2.4 Revisiting the Maoist ‘Smart Village’
Jessica Imbach