Aesthetic Governance and China's Rural Toilet Revolution
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4980786 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Xi Lan (0000-0002-5187-5291), Hok Bun Ku (0000-0003-2365-8182), Yang Zhan (0000-0001-7357-7861) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 55 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 219-243 |
| Publication date | 2024-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Development and Change (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0012-155X • E-ISSN: 1467-7660 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/dech.12823 |
| OpenAlex | W4395109397 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 40 |
This article addresses aesthetic politics in the Chinese rural toilet revolution. Toilet retrofitting is conventionally regarded as an issue of sanitation improvement, but in the emerging trend of rural post-productivism transformation, toilets have become contested sites of aesthetic governance in rural development. Using the case of a village in Northern China, the authors show that, in order to beautify the rural environment, toilet identification, selection, placement and demolition are all directed by aesthetic norms for a beautiful village. Additionally, the aestheticization of village development has legitimized state-led development by creating a common-sense understanding of and imagination for the future. However, aesthetic logics can represent a mismatch with the realities of local lives, resulting in place alienation and suspended development. This article unpacks the logics, mechanisms and spatial-social processes of aesthetic governance in the Chinese toilet revolution
Alienation · China · Corporate governance · Economics · Management · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Retrofitting · Sanitation · Sociology · Subjectivity · Toilet · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law · Urban Planning and Governance · Water Governance and Infrastructure
The Politics of Aesthetics
Hygiene, Sociality, and Culture in Contemporary Rural China
Rule By Aesthetics
The Will to Improve
The Privatization of Public Space
Constructing ordinary places
Geoengineering the Sublime
Overtourism, place alienation and the right to the city
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Neo-agents’
Aesthetics of zero tolerance
Managed Campaign and Bureaucratic Institutions in China
Producing an ideal village
Edge city or bust
Zero graffiti for a beautiful city
Aesthetic politics and community gardens in Singapore
The back-to-the-city movement
Making the countryside more like the countryside? Rural planning and metropolitan visions in post-quake Chengdu
Hygienic Modernity
Alienation in a four factor world
Ecological civilization
Insta-Gaze
Shaming and Sanitation in Indonesia
Building a Harmonious Society through Greening
Preference for rural living environment improvement initiatives in China
Encountering Development
Seeing Like a State
The political agency of cityscapes
Place Attachment and Alienation from Place
The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 5 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |