Abstract
Gong’s chapter examines Wang Jiuliang’s eco-documentary Beijing Besieged by Waste. It investigates the ways in which places of waste, human beings, and animals are figured in the film, and the ecological implications that the discourse of waste has on a society marked by raging urbanization and rampant commercialization. Gong focuses on the concepts of place, misplacement, and displacement in the discourse of waste, and explores the ways in which they are inscribed in the narrative of the film and contribute to the construction of wasted nature, humans, and animals. Gong argues that waste, as an ecological problem and a social discourse, is a product of modern urbanization, commercialization, and consumerism, which not only defines the geographical place of waste but also constructs its social place.
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Notes
- 1.
I refer to Chia-ju Chang’s definition of “environing” in her “Introduction” in this volume—“consideration of modes, aesthetics, ethics and politics of environmental inclusion and exclusion.” My idea of “place and misplacement” resonates with Chang’s definition in that waste as a misplaced object is always already involved in the politics of environmental inclusion and exclusion—waste is discarded but also surrounds us, marking the boundary between us and the other. It bears the socio-cultural significance of marginality and supplementarity.
- 2.
Douglas, Purity and Danger, 37.
- 3.
Ibid., 36.
- 4.
Strasser, Waste and Want, 5.
- 5.
Worster, The Wealth of Nature, 27.
- 6.
Jack, “2010 Seyingwuji niandu shi da sheyingshi jiexiao.”
- 7.
For instance, “Jingji ban xiaoshi” (Economy in 30 Minutes), a signature program in the Economic Channel of the China Central TV (CCTV) consecutively broadcast special reports on the subject “Pojie laji weicheng” (Resolving besiegement of cities by waste) in the end of 2014 and beginning of 2015. These reports covered dire situations of waste disposal in Wuhan, Three Gorges Dam, Danjiangkou, Leshan, Haikou, and cities in the Southeast coastal area.
- 8.
Wang, “Lun laji,” 214.
- 9.
See Silguy, Histoire des hommes et de leurs ordures.
- 10.
Wang, 212.
- 11.
See Kristeva, Powers of Horror, passim.
- 12.
Wang, 221.
- 13.
Hawkins, The Ethics of Waste, 2.
- 14.
See Chen and Tao, “Bushi laji baowei weicheng, ershi chengshi baowei laji.”
- 15.
Bauman, 100.
- 16.
Wang, 213.
- 17.
Ibid., 217.
- 18.
Ibid., 215–16.
- 19.
Wang, 217.
- 20.
Strasser, 10–11.
- 21.
Anagnost, “The Corporeal Politics of Quality (suzhi),” 204.
- 22.
Smith, Uneven Development, 33–65.
- 23.
Harvey, Justice, Nature, and the Geography of Difference, 150–51.
- 24.
Baudrillard, The Consumer Society, 47.
- 25.
Bauman, 95.
- 26.
Ibid., 99–100.
- 27.
Ibid., 110–11.
- 28.
Baudrillard, 48.
- 29.
Ibid., 45.
- 30.
Bauman, 97.
- 31.
Strasser, 9.
- 32.
Ibid.
- 33.
Baudrillard, 46.
- 34.
Bauman, 59.
- 35.
Ibid., 5–6.
- 36.
See Silguy.
- 37.
Zhou Shiping. “Yong liangxin ‘guancha’ laji,” 26.
- 38.
Rust and Monani, “Introduction,” in Ecocinema Theory and Practice, 3.
- 39.
Zhou, 22–23.
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Gong, H. (2019). Place, Animals, and Human Beings: The Case of Wang Jiuliang’s Beijing Besieged by Waste. In: Chang, Cj. (eds) Chinese Environmental Humanities. Chinese Literature and Culture in the World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18634-0_8
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