Toward an Understanding of “Release” ( Fangkai )
Labor, Minerals, and the Transformation of a Mountain Region in China's Long 1980s
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12423685 |
|---|---|
| Authors | N Bartlett (0000-0001-6339-2820, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 33 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 425-449 |
| Publication date | 2025-07-25 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | positions asia critique (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1067-9847 • E-ISSN: 1527-8271 |
| Publisher | Duke University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1215/10679847-11818938 |
| OpenAlex | W4412717826 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 19 |
In 1985, Hu Yaobang gave a speech in Gejiu urging local officials to follow national efforts to “release” nearby minerals. Tens of thousands of workers who had previously been excluded from the industry subsequently flocked to the nearby mountains to aid in extraction efforts. Tin outputs surged over the next decade. This essay explores the opening of the mining sector in this period by attending to how competition among different groups gave new meanings to the government's categories of Big and Small. Common since the early 1980s, these designations could refer to the quality of ore in the earth's crust, the scale of extraction efforts, as well as the types of organizations authorized to mine. Reforming this sector in the mountains of southern Yunnan required local actors to pioneer new ways of both recruiting and repelling workers of various backgrounds, foster mountainside relationships between long-standing SOE miners and newcomers, and innovate extraction practices that further transformed state, collective, and privately run organizations. Crucial debates about scale, government oversight, hierarchies of labor, ownership, the fate of Maoist infrastructures, and, most fundamentally, if and how the “masses” (qunzhong) could be integrated into the opening economy came to be adjudicated on and in the mountains around Gejiu
China · Government (linguistics · Mining engineering · Mining industry · Perspective (graphical · Political science · State (computer science · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Chinese history and philosophy · Engineering · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies
Booty Socialism, Bureau-Preneurs, and the State in Transition
Money, the Mountain, and State Power in a Naxi Village
Justice for Whom? Redressing the “1975 Shadian Incident” in the Post-Mao Era, 1978–2019
Competition and Complementarity
"Peasant Entrepreneurs in China's "Second Economy
Mining Leftovers
Introduction
Resource Wars
Violence, Just in Time
The Politics of Pits and the Materiality of Mine Labor
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |