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Environmental Winds challenges the notion that globalized social formations emerged solely in the Global North prior to impacting the Global South. Instead, such formations have been constituted, transformed, and propelled through diverse, site-specific social interactions that complicate and defy divisions between 'global' and 'local.' The book brings the reader into the lives of Chinese scientists, officials, villagers, and expatriate conservationists who were caught up in environmental trends over the past 25 years. Hathaway reveals how global environmentalism has been enacted and altered in China, often with unanticipated effects, such as the rise of indigenous rights, or the reconfiguration of human/animal relationships, fostering what rural villagers refer to as “the revenge of wild elephants.”

During a period when established Western economies are treading water at best, industry and development are exploding in China and India. The world's two most populous nations are the biggest reasons for Asia's growing footprint on other global regions. The impact of that footprint is especially important in the Middle East, given that region's role as an economic and geopolitical linchpin.

This article explores the context of the long-distance translocation of crops in prehistory. We draw upon contrasts in the isotopic signatures of Southwest Asian crops, including wheat and barley - C 3 plants, compared to Asian millets - C 4 plants, to investigate a key region of trans-Eurasian exchange, the Chinese province of Gansu. The isotopic results demonstrate that in Gansu province prior to 2000 cal. bc, the staples were millets. Between 2000 and 1800 cal. bc, there was a significant shift in staple foods towards the Southwest Asian crops. In the broader regional context, however, it would seem that these novel crops were not consumed in large quantities in many parts of China during the second millennium bc. This suggests that, while the Southwest Asian crops were adopted and became a staple food source in Gansu province in the second millennium bc, they were disregarded as staple foods elsewhere in the same millennium.

This paper explores the transformation and sustainability of rural marketplaces in Southwest China through the lens of spatial practice. Drawing on ethnographic data from Qingyangba, it examines ganji (赶集)—the periodic market gatherings—as a form of living heritage. The study reveals how local communities adapt to modernity by reshaping traditional marketing spaces into hybrid socio-cultural hubs while navigating inherent conflicts in their pursuit of a better life. Rather than focusing solely on the decline of rural marketplaces or interpreting their evolution through structural or functional changes, this paper argues from the practitioners’ perspective. It highlights that the challenges confronting living heritage are fundamentally linked to shifts in everyday life. Key factors such as maintaining community vitality, fostering public engagement, and heightened national awareness of traditional practices fuel a renewed cultural pride and identity, facilitating ongoing transformation and sustainability of activities in marketplaces as living heritage.

The essays in this volume reflect on the nature of subjectivity in the diverse places where anthropologists work at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Contributors explore everyday modes of social and psychological experience, the constitution of the subject, and forms of subjection that shape the lives of Basque youth, Indonesian artists, members of nongovernmental HIV/AIDS programs in China and the Republic of Congo, psychiatrists and the mentally ill in Morocco and Ireland, and persons who have suffered trauma or been displaced by violence in the Middle East and in South and Southeast Asia.

Carter and Ehteshami consider the significant geopolitical, economic and security links between the Middle East and the wider Asian world - links which are often overlooked when the Middle East is considered in isolation or in terms of its relations with the West, but which are of growing importance. Topics covered include Asia's overall geostrategic realities and the Middle East's place within them; relations between the Middle East and China, Russia, central Asia, southeast Asia and south Asia; Islam in central Asia and southeast Asia and the connections with the Middle East; and the important links between the Middle East and India and Pakistan's military and security establishments.

In the last two decades, China's western inland region has largely been left out of the nation's economic boom. While its 355-million population accounts for 28% and its land area for 71% of China's total, the region's share of the national GDP is under 20%. Since 1999, Beijing has implemented the West China Development Program to boost the region's growth. To study the major domestic issues and the global implications of this program, the University of Victoria's Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives organized and hosted a multidisciplinary international conference on March 6-8, 2003. This volume of papers presented at the conference offers perspectives on the issues by leading experts of diversified academic disciplines from China, Canada, the US, and other countries.Sample Chapter(s)Introduction: West China Development Issues and Challenges (3,355 KB)Contents:Goals and Objectives:Designing a Regional Development Strategy for China (D Perkins)Eco-Environmental Protection and Poverty-Alleviation in West China Development (Y Zheng & Y Qian)Western China: Human Security and National Security (R Bedeski)Coordinating Institutions and Mechanism:A New Pattern of Regional Co-operation in China: Four Economic Belts Across East to West (S Li et al.)The Political Logic of Fiscal Transfers in China (S Wang)An Introductory Environmental Macroeconomic Framework for China: Implications for West China Development (D Thampapillai et al.)Enhancing the Western China Development Strategy (WCDS): Innovative Approaches (N C Stoskopf et al.)Effectiveness and Efficiency:On the Urban-Rural Relationship in Western Region Development Program (Y Shi & P Du)The Western Region's Growth Potential (D Lu & E Thomson)Measuring the Impact of the \"Five Mega-Projects\" (L Lin & S Liu)Education and Development: A Historical Experience of Sichuan (Y Li)Distribution of Benefits and Costs:The New Challenges Facing the Development of West China (S Liu & L Lin)Migration Scenarios and Western China Development: The Evidence from 2000 Population Census Data (S Bao & W T Woo)Gender Relations, Tourism and Ecological Effects in Lijiang, China (G Kelkar)Sources of Interregional Disparity:The Relative Contributions of Location and Preferential Policies in China's Regional Development (S Demurger et al.)Urbanization and West China Development (D Lu & W T Woo)China's Regional Disparities in 1978-2000 (Z Lu & S Song)and other papers.Readership: Researchers, academics, students and business consultants interested in China and its development.