Crossing to the Other Shore: Navigating the Troubled Waters of Cultural Loss and Eco-Crisis in Late-Socialist China

Abstract

Using the dual crises of cultural loss in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China, and environmental degradation at adjacent Dianchi Lake as background, this paper coins a new term, ignowledge, to describe a particular “technology of rule” in the Chinese political system. Ignowledge is a power tied to culturally specific conceptions of modernity, development, politics, ecology, eco-politics, and environmentality.