Asian Studies Theses and Dissertations

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Browsing Asian Studies Theses and Dissertations by Author "Buck, Daniel"

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    Capital's Chinese Pigpen: Political Ecologies of Pig Production in the People's Republic of China
    (University of Oregon, 2016-02-23) Conant, Abram; Buck, Daniel
    This thesis analyzes contemporary political ecologies of pig farming in the People's Republic of China, as well as emergent discourses of “meatification” and the industrialization of Chinese agriculture more broadly. Situated within these extensive, heterogenous, and dynamic assemblages, which I contextualize in historical-geographical terms throughout Chapter I, I narrow my argument to three relatively neglected problematics that occupy subsequent chapters: the role of pigs in the affective construction of modernity, the microbiological zones of insecurity intertwined with industrial pig production, and the re-valorization of urban food waste through peri-urban pig farming, including so-called “garbage pigs.” Animated by broad political, ethical, ontological, and epistemological concerns about society and ecology, culture and technology, and food and the mass-production of commodified organisms, this research helps demonstrate how fraught relationships between pigs, people, and place participate in the politics of "modernity" in the People's Republic of China.
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    Changing Rurality in Contemporary China: Double Commodification of the Countryside
    (University of Oregon, 2024-01-09) Wu, Shuxi; Buck, Daniel
    This thesis examines contemporary rural transformations in China. I suggest that a different spatial relationship among production, reproduction, and consumption is in the making, grafted onto the urban-rural divide. A different urban-rural relationship is also in the making, shaped by changing divisions and integrations of labor that go into production, reproduction, and consumption. I argue that these two processes are occurring through a double commodification of the countryside, which produces what I call “rural commodity” and “rural-as-commodity”. “Rural commodity” refers to the ways in which products of rural labor are absorbed into urban-centered accumulation processes. “Rural-as-commodity” refers to how rurality itself has become an object of desire and exchange. These two forms of commodity collaborate to transform the urban-rural division of labor in China to facilitate accumulation. I focus specifically on rural tourism and media representations of new rurality to illustrate how these two forms of commodification converge.
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    "Chineseness" in Malaysian Chinese Education Discourse: The Case of Chung Ling High School
    (University of Oregon, 2012) Goh, Jing Pei; Goh, Jing Pei; Buck, Daniel
    The Chinese education issues in Malaysia appear frequently in political discourse, often featuring contentious discussions of language learning and national education policies. Applying an historical approach to contextualize a political discourse, this thesis examines the politics and transformation of Malaysian Chinese education, in microcosm, at the level of a renowned Chinese school, Chung Ling High School in Penang. It explores and maps the question of "Chineseness" through the examination of the history and development of Chung Ling since its establishment in 1917. This thesis also aims to elucidate the complex negotiation between multiple stakeholders of the Chinese community which took place at different historical junctures in a postcolonial and multi-ethnic nation. I discuss memorial activities for two deceased educationists, David Chen and Lim Lian Geok, which have been readapted into contemporary discourse by different factions of educationists to express their dissatisfactions toward state hegemony on education policies. Lastly, I argue that the persistent pursuit of "Chineseness" is counterproductive to the aim of safeguarding interests of Chinese schools within and outside the national education system today.
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    Superscribing Sustainability: Reformulating China's Contemporary Urbanism
    (University of Oregon, 2013-10-03) Rodenbiker, Jesse; Buck, Daniel
    Within China's post-1980's urban planning discourse, shan-shui, a significance-laden compound character set translatable as `mountain-water' or `landscape', aligned with urban sustainability. The focus of this genealogical discourse analysis delineates the origins, evolution, interpretation, and application of the term shan-shui within China's contemporary urbanization as a developing urban design paradigm, informed through transnational flows of urban design practices. This work highlights case studies showing this discourse's morphological materializations and analyzes interviews, publications, media, letter exchanges, and urban designs to problematize the use of shan-shui within the discursive processes of urban development and sustainability discourses. The superscription of shan-shui generates a rubric through which Chinese cultural and symbolic elements are (re)formulated in contemporary urban developments and conjoined with sustainable urban design practices facilitating multifaceted ends including efforts towards sustainable urban development, bourgeoning neo-classical urban aesthetics, conceptual bridging of human-nature relations, land-centric capital accumulation, and a vernacular urbanism.
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    The Evolving Fashion of Taiwan from 1949-1987: Expression, Consumption, and Futurity
    (University of Oregon, 2020-12-08) DiFonzo, Nakota; Buck, Daniel
    The martial law era was an important period for the development of the fashion market in Taiwan. Due to economic and/or cultural influence from China, Japan, Western Europe, and, importantly, the United States, Taiwan was transformed into a consumer-capitalist society where the GMD increasingly predicated its legitimacy as a governing body on its ability to provide an economically comfortable, and consumer-oriented lifestyle for its citizens. In turn, the Taiwanese population, whose standard of living and disposable income increased over the course of the martial law period, had a progressively greater capacity to don a variety of new fashions. The beneficiaries of the fashion market also increasingly exposed Taiwanese to more fashion advertisements and articles in order to entice them into purchasing certain fashion products. This thesis draws on fashion advertisements and fashion articles from newspapers, literary sources from acclaimed writers such as Zhu Tianwen, and interviews from anonymous participants who share stories about the factors that informed the fashion that they donned.