Construing and constructing the South China Sea beyond state‐led environmentalism
Vernacularizing geographical, geopolitical and sociotechnical imaginaries of territory
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20153580 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Edyta Roszko (0000-0003-4743-4212, Christian Michelsen Institute Bergen Norway, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 44 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 75-94 |
| Publication date | 2023-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0129-7619 • E-ISSN: 1467-9493 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/sjtg.12451 |
| PMID | 37064172 |
| OpenAlex | W4301398905 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 41 |
During the 2010s, the South China Sea (SCS) became a geopolitical flashpoint over the sovereignty of the Paracels and Spratlys. China envisioned its transformation of coral reefs into military bases and island cities as an SCS ‘green construction’ project. This article analyses how the SCS is discursively construed and practically constructed as maritime national territory, by mobilizing fishing legacies and extending state limits through ‘state‐led environmentalism’ rhetoric. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in China, I show that state‐led environmentalism is a hierarchical process that intermittently co‐opts and excludes local populations to advance the state's territorial ambitions, which are anchored in geographical, geopolitical and socio‐technical imaginaries of ‘maritime civilization’. Yet, I also show that in this process, the SCS emerges as spaces of vernacularized political claims. Thus, I argue that territory is not only a political technology of control but also vernacular practice through which universalizing discourses— whether on the Exclusive Economic Zone regime, sovereignty or nature—are adapted and modified
China · Economy · Environmentalism · Geography · Geopolitics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sovereignty · State (computer science) · Asian Studies and History · International Maritime Law Issues · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs · Law
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The Birth of Territory
How Societies Remember
Geocultural Power
On the History and Present Condition of Geography
Modernity at large
Geographical imaginations
China’s Blue Economy
Towards sustainable small-scale fisheries in China
Knowing into oblivion
Discovering Nature
Civilisation Recast
Seaways and Gatekeepers
Modern Social Imaginaries
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The limits of territory and terrain
The South China Sea
Fishing Militia, the Securitization of Fishery and the South China Sea Dispute
Acceleration in a time of war
Geographical imagination
Greening western China
Territory beyond terra
For the place of terrain and materialist ‘re’ -returns
Terrain, politics, history
Navigating Seas, Markets, and Sovereignties
Maritime territorialisation as performance of sovereignty and nationhood in the South China Sea
The Modern Origins of China’s South China Sea Claims
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Fishers, Monks and Cadres
Ocean frontiers
Absent Maps, Marine Science, and the Reimagination of the South China Sea, 1922-1939
The Perception of the Environment
New frontiers of land control
Territorialization and state power in Thailand
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,5 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |