Abstract
This chapter analyses how several documentaries touch on the environmental issues in relation to social justice and ethnic minorities, such as the over-exploitation of natural resources and disruption of the ecological equilibrium in the ethnic regions, but some of them generally maintain a conservative political position for upholding state sovereignty and fail to do justice to the subject.
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Notes
- 1.
Ban Wang, “Of Humans and Nature in Documentary: The Logic of Capital in West of the Tracks and Blind Shaft”, Chinese Ecocinema in the Age of Environmental Challenge, eds. Sheldon H. Lu and Jiayan Mi, (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009), 157–169.
- 2.
Judith Butler, Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 84.
- 3.
Emily T. Yeh, “Greening Western China: A Critical View”, Geoforum 40 (2009): 884–894.
- 4.
Wang Lixiong, My West Region, Your East Turkestan [Wo de xiyu, ni de dongtu], (Taipei: Locus, 2007).
- 5.
Some Hui people from the Chinese mainland consider this a derogatory term, but there is no etymological basis for this view.
- 6.
Film Industry Promotion Law 2016, The National Congress of the People’s Republic of China website: http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/xinwen/2016-11/07/content_2001625.htm. Accessed on 2nd September, 2018.
- 7.
Roland Barthes, Image Music Text, Stephen Heath ed. and trans., (London: Fontana Press, 1977), 40.
Filmography
Du, Haibin. 1428. China. CNEX. 2009.
Ning, Ying. Railway of Hope [Xiwang zhi lv]. China. Ning Ying for Happy Village Ltd. 2002.
Xu, Xin. A Yangtze Landscape [Changjiang]. China. Xu Xin Documentary Film Studios. 2017.
Zhao, Liang. Behemoth [Bei xi moshou]. China. Institut National de l’Audiovisuel (INA). 2015.
Zhou, Hao. Cotton [Mianhua]. China. Han Lei for Documentary Channel of SMG, Michel Noll for ICTV-Solferino Images. 2014.
Bibliography
Barthes, Roland. 1977. Image Music Text. Ed. and Trans. Stephen Heath. London: Fontana Press.
Butler, Judith. 2015. Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Film Industry Promotion Law 2016. 2016. The National Congress of the People’s Republic of China. http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/xinwen/2016-11/07/content_2001625.htm. Accessed 2 Sept 2018.
Wang, Lixiong. 2007. My West Region, Your East Turkestan [Wo de xiyu, ni de dongtu]. Taipei: Locus.
Wang, Ban. 2009. Of Humans and Nature in Documentary: The Logic of Capital in West of the Tracks and Blind Shaft. In Chinese Ecocinema in the Age of Environmental Challenge, ed. Sheldon H. Lu and Jiayan Mi, 157–169. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Yeh, Emily T. 2009. Greening Western China: A Critical View. Geoforum 40: 884–894.
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Yeung, J. (2019). The Environment and Social Justice in Chinese Documentaries: Crisis or Hope?. In: Lo, KC., Yeung, J. (eds) Chinese Shock of the Anthropocene. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6685-7_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6685-7_3
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