The Changing Face of the Chengdu Plain Landscape

Abstract

Despite extensive research by geographers, anthropologists, and historians on the Chinese landscape, relatively little is known about the remarkable transformation of the everyday landscape in the inland region of China over the past century and a half. The overall image of the everyday Chinese landscape that emerges from the literature is blurred: pastoral, traditional Chinese style, but also modern and international. This study uses the inland Chengdu Plain as a case to present a realistic and vivid image of the changing everyday landscape through an in-depth archive investigation and semi-structured interviews with eighty ordinary people now living in ten distinct villages. An analysis of the landscape-related archives and interviews shows that the interaction between popular culture, historical contingencies, interventionist policies, and governance strategies has guided the formation and transformation of the everyday landscape of the Chengdu Plain. Further genealogical examination of the daily landscape practices reveals that the governments and various social groups, such as local gangs and guilds, intentionally designed many landscape forms as a spatial regime to raise a particular form of subjectivity and promote a specific mode of daily life among Chengdu people. This study adds nuance to our understanding of the everyday landscape in inland China in a context of dramatic social and political change. It is also part of a growing body of research on the relationship between spaces, places, and governance. Show more