Engineering a State of Nature: Hydraulic Transformations on the North China Plain, 1949-1999

工程的自然状态：1949- 1999年华北平原的水力改造。本研究将探讨1949年以来华北平原的水利工程。具体而言，该项目围绕两个问题展开：1)水利工程是如何塑造并反过来塑造了国家建设、民族认同和对现代性的追求；2)水利工程是如何改变华北平原的环境的。本研究将透过区分不同的国家价值与目标，探讨1949年后国家与自然的关系。本项目将考察这些时期的水利工程项目，并就这些项目如何反映国家目标得出结论。关于这些时期的环境后果的比较结论将通过检查影响水利工程的基本紧张关系来指导，这些紧张关系反映了对民族、国家和现代性的不同假设。这些矛盾包括：1)现代技术vs.群众动员；2)中央计划vs.地方计划；3)国际技术合作vs.自力更生；4)经济发展vs.环境保护。这项关于国家、水利工程和自然之间的交叉点的研究受到了过去关于科学和技术社会背景的学术研究的影响。具体来说，这项研究受到了最近的学术研究的严重影响，这些研究考察了国家和自然的“共同建设”，并认识到国家在现代性、技术和自然的话语中作为行动者的关键作用。本研究将填补中国科学技术研究和环境史学研究的空白，并为其他比较研究提供有价值的研究。许多关于国家与自然关系的学术研究都集中在西方文化区。这项研究将认识到，中国社会的关键要素确实符合20世纪工业化社会中对国家、科学技术和自然的基本概念。然而，与此同时，中国国家的社会政治价值观、目标和制度产生了1949年后中国水利工程的特殊文化背景。该项目还将培养对中国当代改革计划更细致入微的看法。了解自1949年以来水利工程和技术是如何嵌入特定的历史和文化背景的，可以让人们认识和理解中国水政策规划者的选择范围。本研究的结论还将提出资源枯竭对中国在世界市场中的作用和中国安全考虑的潜在影响。水资源短缺的一个后果是农业生产力下降，这将以重要的方式影响中国的内部和外部行动。这项研究将暗示中国对世界农业市场的潜在影响，以及中国在区域和全球安全安排中日益增加的存在。

ENGINEERING A STATE OF NATURE: HYDRAULIC TRANSFORMATIONS ON THE NORTH CHINA PLAIN, 1949-99This research will explore hydraulic engineering on the North China Plain since 1949. Specifically, the project centers on two issues: 1) how hydraulic engineering was shaped by, and in turn shaped, state-building, national identity, and the pursuit of modernity, and 2) how the environment of the North China Plain was transformed by hydraulic engineering. The research will explore the state-nature nexus after 1949 by distinguishing differing state values and goals. The state pursued Soviet-style central planning for much of the 1950s, Great Leap Forward decentralization and communalization between 1958-1961, a blend of state planning and mass mobilization during the early 1960s (1961-65) and 1970s, the Cultural Revolution (1966-69), and "market socialism" of the post-Mao era (1978-). Intellectual MeritsThe project will examine hydraulic engineering projects during these periods and develop conclusions on how these projects were reflections of state goals. Comparative conclusions about the environmental consequences of these periods will be guided by examining fundamental tensions that informed hydraulic engineering, and that reflected differing assumptions about the nation, state, and modernity. These tensions included: 1) modern technology vs. mass mobilization, 2) central vs. local planning, 3) international technical cooperation vs. self-reliance, and 4) economic development vs. environmental protection. This study on the intersections between the state, hydraulic engineering, and nature is influenced by past scholarship on the social context of science and technology. Specifically, the research is heavily influenced by recent scholarship that examines the "co-construction" of nation and nature, and that recognizes the critical role of the state as actor in the discourses of modernity, technology, and nature. Broader ImpactsThis research will fill a void in science and technology studies, and environmental historical studies of China, and will offer research valuable to other comparative studies. Much of the scholarship on the relationship between states and nature has focused on western cultural regions. This research will recognize that critical elements of Chinese society indeed subscribed to fundamental twentieth-century conceptions of state, science and technology, and nature reflected in industrialized societies. At the same time, however, the Chinese state's socio-political values, goals, and institutions generated a particular cultural context of hydraulic engineering in China after 1949. The project will also foster a more nuanced view of China's contemporary reform program. Understanding how hydraulic engineering and technology were embedded in a particular historical and cultural context since 1949 allows one to recognize and understand the range of choices available to China's water policy planners. The conclusions of this study will also suggest the potential implications of resource depletion on China's role in world markets and on China's security considerations. Declining agricultural productivity, one consequence of water scarcity, will influence China's internal and external actions in important ways. The research will be suggestive of China's potential impact on world agricultural markets and its increasing presence in regional and global security arrangements.