The Good Life as the Green Life: Digital Environmentalism and Ecological Consciousness in China

Abstract

Abstract Faced with environmental degradation and atmospheric pollution, Chinese citizens increasingly envision the good life as a green life. Yet in cities and the countryside, understandings of environmental hardship and ecological redress diverge and at times even contradict each other. Nonetheless, promises of a greener future mobilize shared notions of cooperation in exchanges of work and support between urbanites and their rural counterparts. Situated between socialist sacrifice, market service, and digital technologies, these reciprocal environmental engagements challenge historical narratives of a smooth transition from the Maoist collective-oriented and public-spirited hero to the private and individualistic new subject of the Reform era. The mobilization of ecological labor instantiates a distinct formation of neosocialist desires and subjectivities oriented toward a greener future. Underlying this vision is a conception of shengtai yishi 生态意识 (ecological consciousness) that resonates with the government rhetoric of constructing a shengtai wenming 生态文明 (ecological civilization) in China and beyond.