Call for Papers

CHESS Workshop 2016

LOCAL CLIMATE CHANGE GOVERNANCE & RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN CHINA

19-20 November 2016

Deadline for abstract submissions: 30 September 2016

Organized by CHESS (China and the Environment in the Social Sciences)

Hosted by The Department of East Asian Studies, University of Vienna (Austria)

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The topic of the workshop

Issues revolving around climate change governance and resource management activities in China have ignited heated debates both in the country itself and abroad. Beyond doubt, China faces a multitude of environmental challenges – ranging from climate change-related impacts such as soil contamination, water scarcity and forest fires to the overexploitation of natural resources, e.g. in the form of illegal logging. These problems have been tackled from two sides. On the one hand, the Chinese state – at both the central and the local level – has taken remedial action by issuing regulatory and policy measures. On the other hand, civil and corporate stakeholders have initiated bottom-up approaches to tackle these challenges, in particular in urban areas. Given these impetuses from above and below, the question put up for discussion in the workshop is how these approaches have affected climate change governance and resource management activities at the local level. Is the resulting dynamic one of conflict, or rather one of cooperation?

Goals of the workshop

The workshop aims to bring together young and experienced scholars in the field of environmental governance and welcomes contributions from all disciplines (e.g., political science, sociology, anthropology, economics, history, etc.). Such an inter-disciplinary approach has proven to generate fruitful results in the past (see the CHESS Young Scholars Conference 2015, http://chess.univie.ac.at/chess-young-scholars-conference-2015/). In this spirit, researchers from the above-mentioned fields and other disciplines dealing with climate change governance and resource management issues in the PRC and/or Taiwan are highly encouraged to submit their proposals.

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

• Administrative and non-administrative measures of China’s resource management
• International environmental- and climate change diplomacy
• Discourses of climate change and resource management
• Urban and rural systems of environmental governance in comparison
• Changing roles of state, market, and civil actors
• Tools, policies, and marketization strategies for the promotion of a green economy

The organizers of the workshop

The workshop is organized by the research network CHESS (China and the Environment in the Social Sciences) which is based at the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Vienna. CHESS was founded in late 2013 as a forum for postgraduate students with research interests related to the environment in China. The network aims to provide a platform for students and scholars to exchange ideas and information on related topics, and to facilitate collaborative, interdisciplinary projects and publications.

Application procedures for the workshop

Applicants are requested to submit an abstract (max. 300 words) and a short biography (max. 150 words) in English to chess.ostasien [at] univie.ac.at by 30 September 2016. Selected candidates will be notified by 10 October 2016. Please contact the conference organizers at the above email address with any additional queries. More information and a detailed schedule will be provided closer to the conference date.

Important information at a glance

Conference dates: 19-20 November 2016

Conference venue: Department of East Asian Studies, University of Vienna, Austria

Contact and abstract submission: chess.ostasien [at] univie.ac.at

Abstracts (incl. short biography) due: 11 October 2016

Notification of acceptance: 24 October 2016

Full papers (8,000 words) due: 12 November 2016

Organizer’s Homepage: http://chess.univie.ac.at/