Speaker: Vivienne Shue, Professor Emeritus of Contemporary China Studies, Associate of the University of Oxford China Centre, and Emeritus Fellow of St. Antony's College, University of Oxford
Discussant: Kevin O'Brien, Director, Institute of East Asian Studies; Professor, Political Science Department, UC Berkeley
The lecture develops three broad themes: a) How Chinese state leaders now pursue a comprehensive national spatial re-ordering through an ambitious land-use mapping regime applied over the entirety of their nation-space; b) How such a spectacular mapping exercise can be interpreted with reference equally to political leadership practices present in primitive human communities and to contemporary global ideals of ‘best practice’ managerialism; and c) How the multiplex governance processes and mixed assemblages of intersecting power practices recent research reveals in China can help us transcend tired conceptual dichotomies and develop more fluid, dynamic models of political change and evolution.