Corporations, Governments, and Socioenvironmental Policy in China: China's Water Machine as Assemblage

Abstract

The standard approach to China's environmental management, fragmented authoritarianism, assumes the existence of state, corporations, farmers, and consumers. New social actors now populate the Chinese landscape, however. One such actor is the network we call the China water machine; others comprise the networks and coalitions that oppose the China water machine's operations. These actors play out their operations and conflicts within socioenvironmental regions like Yunnan. All three (China water machine, oppositional groups, and socioenvironmental regions) are interpreted as assemblages. After contrasting assemblage and the hydrosocial cycle, the article demonstrates how assemblage theory ca..