GEOG 182 - China Study Trip: Sustainable stratergies and impacts along the central Yangtze River

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

(Same as ASIA 182 and ENST 182) Since the 1950s, developing countries around the world have embraced modernization as a necessary and desirable passage. Critical scholars have argued, however, that techno-bureaucratic-driven modernization has led to environmental destruction and marginalization of disadvantaged populations and regions. This course explores this tension and investigates the strategies China has deployed in infrastructure, agriculture, tourism, and other sectors to negotiate the complex interactions between economic development, technology, cultural diversity, and environmental sustainability. This course includes a spring break study trip through the central part of China’s Yangtze River Valley. We start and end with China’s largest cities, Shanghai and Beijing, but most of the trip takes place in central China in Hubei province, which straddles the central segment of the Yangtze River. On the river, our journey starts in Wuhan, focusing on a rice/crayfish complex in the flood plain to understand the potential of aqua/agri farming. We then enter the mountainous western part of Hubei, stopping by the Three Gorges Dam, the largest hydroelectric dam in the world, to learn about its impact on populations displaced by its creation. We spend several days in Enshi, a previously isolated Tu-Miao minority autonomous region deep in the mountains/gorge–a place that has recently been transformed to specialize in tea production and tourism. We end our Yangtze River journey at Chongqing—China’s largest mountain-metropolis. We exit China through Beijing, the Capital.

Students with expressed interests in sustainability and China may apply for admission. Preference is given to students without previous travel experience in China. Students form small groups to develop a research project with a faculty member, focusing on one aspect of sustainability in China that can be observed on the trip and discuss the lessons for the world. The course is funded by the Luce Initiative of Asian Studies and the Environment (LIASE). Yu Zhou.

Prerequisite(s): Application by fall break with selection by preregistration in the fall.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: INT