The implications of mainstreaming sustainable development: A study of civilized ecological villages in Hainan, China.

摘要

Evidence of China's looming ecological crisis coupled with concerns of increasing rural-urban socio-economic differentiation have generated interest in rural sustainable development in China. A lens of ecological modernity directs Chinese sustainable development efforts towards a reliance on technological and industrial innovations to solve environmental problems. This orientation toward engineering and technological interventions is exemplified in the Chinese ecological village model of sustainable development. Chinese ecological villages are founded on the principles of ecological engineering and strive to foster forms of development which are environmentally more preferable than extant forms of rural development in the Chinese countryside that rely on industrialization. Hainan is one of the first provinces in China to mainstream the ecological village model by launching a rural development program that aims to convert the majority of villages into civilized ecological ones. The implications of using models to plan rural sustainable development initiatives within a top-down, government controlled planning context such as China, has not been well documented.;An institutional context based on top-down planning enabled government officials to unilaterally determine the development agenda in accordance with government notions of progress and modernity. Chinese notions of sustainability grounded in ecological modernity and ideological notions of 'civilization' directed efforts to promote sustainable development in the Chinese countryside towards technology transfer and infrastructure improvement. Rather than becoming vehicles for sustainable development which empower rural populations to become active agents in the development process, a reliance on blue-prints and models of built form served to reinforce government control in the Chinese countryside.;The purpose of this study is to assess the implications of mainstreaming the civilized ecological village model as a means of promoting sustainable development in the Chinese countryside. A qualitative case study approach was used to examine local perspectives and experiences with the development of two civilized ecological villages in Sanya City, Hainan. The study suggests that a reliance on substantive models of built form can be problematic in mainstreaming sustainable development initiatives in China. As the ecological village model was mainstreamed, the top-down planning approach enabled a substantive re-orientation of the model in accordance with government objectives. The planning approach imposed government priorities on rural villages and led to a focus on tangible outputs and the construction of infrastructure, such as roads. Rather than promoting ecological protection, the 'ecological' component of the civilized ecological villages centred on constructing a clean and ordered built village environment. Moreover, the model inserted an ideologically motivated agenda into rural villages by attempting to foster 'civilized' rural customs and culture.