Asian Studies Theses and Dissertationshttps://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/87772024-03-28T12:17:32Z2024-03-28T12:17:32ZChanging Rurality in Contemporary China: Double Commodification of the CountrysideWu, Shuxihttps://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/291922024-01-10T08:38:13Z2024-01-09T00:00:00ZChanging Rurality in Contemporary China: Double Commodification of the Countryside
Wu, Shuxi
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.
2024-01-09T00:00:00ZChinese Perceptions of the EnvironmentFang, Honghttps://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/283262023-05-30T07:29:51Z1997-06-01T00:00:00ZChinese Perceptions of the Environment
Fang, Hong
How to protect the global environment and how to obtain
a sustainable development are the major concerns of the
international community today. China, with the biggest
population and the highest economic growth rate in the last
decade, has become the center of the concern. This thesis
presents and analyzes some contemporary Chinese perceptions
of the environment. It tries to provide a historical origin
and a cultural context for these Chinese perceptions of the
environment. Everybody in China today has become the daily
decision maker for the environment. Since the Chinese
perceptions of environment, in some degree, decides the
Chinese environmental behaviors, an understanding of these
perceptions is important for China's environmental law
enforcement and the promotion of public participation in
China's environmental protection.
85 pages
1997-06-01T00:00:00ZTora-San, Wish You Were Here: Nostalgic Filmmaking In The World’s Longest Film SeriesGhandour, Fawzi Ramihttps://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/277322022-10-27T07:28:47Z2022-10-26T00:00:00ZTora-San, Wish You Were Here: Nostalgic Filmmaking In The World’s Longest Film Series
Ghandour, Fawzi Rami
The longest film series to feature the same actor, the It’s Tough Being a Man film series, known to fans as the Tora-san series, celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with the release of its fiftieth installment, Tora-san, Wish You Were Here (2019). Released twenty-two years after the previous entry and the death of its main actor, this film takes a nostalgic look back on the franchise in the absence the titular Tora-san by a particular technique of inserting scenes from previous films in the series as memories of the film’s main characters. I argue that the film uses its cinematic form to engage with nostalgia in three forms in order to bring Tora-san back. The first is by engaging with the cinematic image cultivated by the series during Japan’s high-growth and bubble economy eras, an image that is defined by Tora-san’s complex character and depictions of vanishing spaces in modern Japan. The second is the use of self-referentiality in the film, adopting the narrative formula of the previous films as well as rooting the cinematic world into the present. Thirdly, the techniques of filmmaking itself are used to evoke a feeling of nostalgia. Through these analyses, I engage with a notion of nostalgic filmmaking and suggest a larger discourse on the connection between cinema and memory within this product of Japanese popular culture.
2022-10-26T00:00:00ZA Space of Renegotiation: Japanese Shachūhaku NarrativesBartholomew, Davidhttps://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/276152022-10-05T07:31:15Z2022-10-04T00:00:00ZA Space of Renegotiation: Japanese Shachūhaku Narratives
Bartholomew, David
In the past decade there has been a growing interest in representations of shachūhaku, or car camping, in Japanese media. In this thesis, I examine three different kinds of media representations of shachūhaku to understand how these narratives provide the distance from the rhythms of everyday life necessary to renegotiate one’s place within the hegemonies that structure them. Each kind of media that I examine has its own formal considerations, and each one utilizes both the spatial configurations of the vehicle and the narrative arc of shachūhaku to bring different aspects of the quotidian under scrutiny, but they all ultimately engage in this renegotiation, whether it be with the concept of death, gender, labor, or home.
2022-10-04T00:00:00Z