The Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies is delighted to present Professor Anne McLaren from the University of Melbourne.

This lecture will discuss recent trends in the study of indigenous folk ecology in China’s lower Yangzi River delta. The focus will be on water ecology, disaster management, and floods.

In the early decades of socialist China, folk beliefs and ritual practices were frowned upon as ‘feudal superstitions’, out of keeping with the progress of a modernising economy. In the reform era (1978) this view underwent change as the Chinese government together with Chinese scholars attempted to salvage what they could from China’s rich cultural heritage after the destructive years of the Cultural Revolution.

In the early 2000s the government advanced the idea that China should pursue an ‘ecological civilisation’, although it was somewhat vague about what this involved. This new policy, together with the introduction of notions of intangible cultural heritage based on UNESCO standards, led to renewed interest in China’s indigenous belief systems. Scholars began to research the role of folk ecologies and practices in sustaining China’s society and economy over the millennia.