Article ID: CBB024793429

Layer upon Layer: Mao-Era History and the Construction of China’s Agricultural Heritage (September 2019)

unapi

Schmalzer, Sigrid (Author)


East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal
Volume: 13
Issue: 3
Pages: 413-441


Publication Date: September 2019
Edition Details: Themed articles on technology in the People's Republic of China
Language: English

Chinese scientists and scholars are actively engaged in a transnational movement to preserve agricultural heritage. The author places this current phenomenon in historical context to explore the changing epistemological assumptions undergirding the agricultural heritage concept. She shows that the discourse on agricultural heritage in China today quietly draws on Mao-era projects; however, the earlier focus on peasant experience has given way to an emphasis on culture more resonant with global currents today. The article further traces the influence of systems theory and ecoagricultural engineering, along with the transformations accompanying the rise of the market economy and tourism industry. Focusing on the celebrated terraces of Wangjinzhuang as a site of agricultural heritage preservation, the author argues that today’s cultural systems paradigm captures the collective character of knowledge better than the experience paradigm did, but that it has simultaneously produced an artificial binary between tradition and modernity that flattens history and especially obscures Mao-era contributions to knowledge production. She proposes that scholars adopt a critical historical approach to recognize the significance of the Mao era in the construction of both agricultural knowledge and the agricultural heritage paradigm, while resisting efforts to co-opt that history in the service of state power.

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Associated with

Article Mellors, Sarah (September 2019) Less Reproduction, More Production: Birth Control in the Early People’s Republic of China, 1949–1958. East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal (pp. 367-389). unapi

Article Ghosh, Arunabh (September 2019) Commentary: New Directions in the Study of PRC-Era Science. East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal (pp. 443-448). unapi

Article Fu, Jia-Chen (September 2019) Practice and the History of Science in the PRC: A Historiographic Reflection. East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal (pp. 449-463). unapi

Article Xu, Chuan (September 2019) From Sonic Models to Sonic Hooligans: Magnetic Tape and the Unraveling of the Mao-Era Sound Regime, 1958–1983. East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal (pp. 391-412). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB024793429/

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Authors & Contributors
Fang, Xiaoping
Emily Ng
Nicholas Anthony Autiello
Liu, Jinyan
Jason M. Kelly
Zhang, Baichun
Concepts
Culture
Public health
Public policy
Heritage
Science and State
Science and culture
Time Periods
20th century
21st century
20th century, late
Modern
20th century, early
Places
China
Shaanxi Province
United States
Spain
Portugal
Japan
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