published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

This dissertation explores student environmentalism in Beijing, China. It traces students' political norms and values, explains their activism and experience of pollution, and investigates the role of environmental non-governmental organisation (ENGOs) in forming youth environmentalism. To serve these objectives, the work takes forward theories on youth activism and agency and recent debates on environmental health, environmentalism and ENGOs. This study was designed as a qualitative research project based primarily on interviews and complemented by ethnographic methods, content analysis, pictorial evidence and survey results provided by the Jane Goodall Institute China. Research findings and methodology are presented in four papers and a framing document. My work challenges labels of agency and activism as either protest and resistance or 'quiescence' and questions the influence of globalisation on activists' norms and values. I put forward 'fragmented activism' as a new concept to capture the nature of youth environmental activism in Beijing. I contribute to environmental health literature by tracing how young people develop discursive mechanisms to mitigate the fear of air pollution and argue that their response offers invaluable insights into the interplay between space and the body in polluted environments. This thesis further shows that the repertoire of student environmental associations in Beijing represents a type of 'place based environmentalism' (Smith, 2001) but argues that, whilst this may be a contradictory response to contemporary environmental issues, it is not usefully assessed against abstract and normative notions of what environmentalism should be. I also challenge scholarly assessments of ENGO action. By exploring ENGO strategies in China that rely on extant societal and governmental narratives about good citizenship and moral values - instead of radical alternatives to mainstream development models or political processes - I argue for new research paradigms guiding the study of environmental movements.

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

published_or_final_version / Asian Studies / Master / Master of Arts

University of Macau / Faculty of Business Administration. / Department of Accounting and Information Management

本研究聚焦2009年到2013年，中國廣州的一場圍繞垃圾處理展開的社會運動。運動最初是當地居民動員起來反對市政府垃圾焚燒項目的鄰避抗爭。勝利後，運動領袖成立了一個環保組織，和政府從對抗走向合作，力圖推动焚燒技術以外的替代性垃圾治理方案。不過，儘管政府和環保者致力於解決垃圾，垃圾問題在消費社會中始終無法消除。本研究試圖理解後社會主義中國的綠色治理和環保行動之間的對抗與合作。 / 首先，我分析當代中國高速城市化和消費社會急速發展所帶來的垃圾危機。然后，我檢視圍繞垃圾焚燒技術的主要爭議，並描繪廣州居民是如何針對政府計劃中的垃圾焚燒項目做出抗爭的。我指出，他們結合地方性知識和科學話語，將自己建構為"常民專家"，對全球性的焚燒科技的"地方適用性"作出成功挑战。接下來，我提供一個民族誌，追溯抗議成功后運動的歷史軌跡。我注意到，通過成立一個環保組織"EC"，反焚運動走向合法化、組織化和制度化，抗爭被體制吸納，轉變為參與協助國家環境治理的運動。最後，我描繪EC與广州政府聯手推動的垃圾分類運動。指出，國家在此運動中的尷尬身份、以利潤為導向的回收市場影響、理想化的垃圾分類知識與普通民眾的知識存在斷裂，都使得推動垃圾分類異常艱難。 / 通過展示運動變遷與國家治理轉型相互交織的辯證关系，本研究挑戰了國家與社會的二元對立，指出在國家在治理轉型過程中不斷收編反抗的行動和話語，而於此同時反焚者又在不斷生產新的另類知識做出挑戰。此外，本研究還貢獻於對廢棄物的理解，將廢棄物視為是一個動態的範疇，國家、市場、科學技術、普通消費者、環保行動者等多個行動者共同生產、競爭、建構其意義。還有，本研究對於科技知識的普遍性的探討，對科學技術研究領域做出了貢獻。 / This is a study on social movements that focused on waste treatment in Guangzhou, China from 2009-2013. The campaign began as a NIMBY (Not-In-My-Backyard) movement that mobilized community residents to protest against municipal government's proposed incineration projects. After its success, the movement leaders changed their dissident role to form an environmental protection NGO, collaborating with the state to explore alternative waste treatment solutions other than incineration. However, despite of the politicians and activists' attempt to eliminate waste, waste continues to exist in tandem of our consumption spree. I endeavor to understand the contradiction as well as collusion between green governance and environmental activisms in post-socialist China. / Firstly, I analyze the garbage crisis caused by the rapid urbanization and the dramatic growth of consumer society in contemporary China. Then I examine a few major technological controversies of waste incineration and depict how the activists protest against the pro-incineration government. I argue that through deploying local knowledge, the activists, as "lay experts", successfully challenged the "local appropriateness" of the global technology of incineration. Next, I provide an in-depth ethnography of the transformation of this campaign after its initial success. I notice that by taking the form of an environmental NGO called "EC", the campaign was legitimized, institutionalized and incorporated into the state’s governance framework. The environmental activism became an aid to the state’s green governmentality. Lastly, I take a detailed look at the waste classification campaign jointly launched by Guangzhou government and EC. I point out that the ambiguous role of the state in this campaign, the profit-oriented recycling market together with the idealist knowledge/practice systems of this project make this campaign extremely difficult. / My research challenges the state-society dichotomy by showing that the trajectory of the campaign is dialectically entangled with the transformation of the state’s governance. The state constantly incorporates the resistance and alternative discourses produced in the movement, whereas the activists keep on producing alternative knowledge to challenge the state. Moreover, this study deepens the understanding of waste by considering waste as a flexible category in which various actors such as state, market, technosicence, consumers as well as the environmental activists are producing, competing and reconstructing its meaning. Also, my discussions of the universal knowledge of science contribute to the field of science and technology studies. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / 張劼穎. / Parallel title from added title page. / Thesis (Ph.D.) Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2015. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 220-236). / Abstracts also in English. / Zhang Jieying.

Yeung Wang On. / Thesis submitted in: November 2006. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-117). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Abstract (Chinese)/ 摘要(中文) --- p.iii / Acknowledgement --- p.v / Contents --- p.vi / Figures and Tables --- p.vii / Abbreviations --- p.viii / Chapter Chapter 1: --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter 2: --- Literature Review --- p.17 / Chapter Chapter 3: --- Long Valley Case Study (1998-2003) --- p.41 / Chapter Chapter 4: --- Victoria Harbour Reclamation Case Study (1994-2005) --- p.68 / Chapter Chapter 5: --- Conclusion --- p.99 / Bibliography --- p.106

published_or_final_version / Urban Studies / Master / Master of Social Sciences

by Maiken Schulz. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 49-51). / LIST OF TABLES --- p.iii / Chapter CHAPTER I - --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter CHAPTER II - --- THE GENERAL CONCEPT OF RECYCLING --- p.4 / Municipal Solid Waste --- p.4 / The Waste Problem --- p.4 / Ways to Reduce the Waste Volume --- p.6 / Recycling Principals --- p.10 / When to recycle --- p.10 / What to recycle --- p.11 / How to recycle --- p.13 / The economics of recycling --- p.14 / Chapter CHAPTER III - --- HONG KONG --- p.16 / Hong Kong's Waste Problem --- p.16 / Waste Content --- p.17 / Reasons for the Waste Problem --- p.18 / Increasing hygiene and convenience: --- p.18 / Lack of material re-using schemes: --- p.19 / Underdeveloped recycling of household waste: --- p.19 / Lack of environmental consciousness: --- p.19 / Hong Kong's Waste Management --- p.21 / Looking back: Waste handling --- p.21 / Landfills --- p.21 / Looking Ahead: The Waste Reduction Framework Plan --- p.23 / Hong Kong's Waste Recovery Industry --- p.23 / Focus on Recycling --- p.26 / Creating awareness --- p.26 / Material Selection --- p.27 / Collection system --- p.27 / Summary --- p.28 / Required Improvements --- p.28 / Separation --- p.28 / Collection --- p.29 / Reprocessing --- p.29 / Marketing --- p.29 / Conclusion --- p.30 / Chapter CHAPTER IV - --- RESEARCH METHODOLOGY --- p.31 / Conceptual framework： the theory of reasoned action model --- p.31 / Conceptual Model --- p.31 / How the theory works --- p.32 / Modifying the original model --- p.33 / Research Design --- p.34 / Hypothesis setting --- p.35 / Data collection --- p.37 / Analysis --- p.37 / Structured Equation Modelling --- p.39 / Test for Model Fit --- p.39 / Financial Incentives --- p.40 / Implications and Recommendations --- p.41 / Implications of the findings --- p.41 / Attitude towards the Act --- p.41 / Subjective Norm --- p.42 / Feasible approach to waste reduction through recycling --- p.43 / APPENDIX --- p.46 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.49

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Social Sciences