Governing Chinese bodies: the Significance of studies in the concept of govermentality for the analysis of goverment in China

Sigley, Gary

doi:10.1080/03085149600000024

Cited by 47 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…However, the use of remote sensing data for land use management has been carried out at the national level, such as by the Ministry of Land and Resources. This use of remote sensing and GIS analysis has allowed the government to "govern at a distance" (Rose-Redwood, 2006;Sigley, 1996). Shenzhen's experience is thus a good example of how technologies for "governing at a distance" are reconstituting governance at the urban scale.…”

Section: Monitoring Urban Change and Decision Support Systemsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Digitizing the Dragon Head, Geo-Coding the Urban Landscape: GIS and the Transformation of China's Urban Governance

Lin

2013

Urban Geography

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While local governments have been one of the major user groups of GIS, there is still little research on how GIS development in local government might be intertwined with urban governance, particularly in non-Western contexts. Drawing upon insights from GIS implementation, critical GIS, and governmentality studies, this article seeks to bridge this gap by examining the implications of Chinese urban government GIS practices amidst China's changing urban governance. Through an in-depth case study of Shenzhen, this article analyzes how urban GIS has been transformed from a practice involving internal organizational workflow automation, into a more active dimension of the governance of urban spaces-reflected in the expanding practice of "geo-coding" the urban landscape. "Geo-coding" here refers to a broadly defined spatial practice of carving and reconstructing a rational urban space. GIS practices have constituted a particular form of geographic rationality that seeks to govern at a distance while simultaneously regulating the urban environment, intersecting with the broader transformations of China's urban governance. These GIS developments have been largely government-centric rather than citizencentric, yet they provide possibilities for new forms of spatial knowledge production for citizen participation in urban governance. [

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Section: Monitoring Urban Change and Decision Support Systemsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Digitizing the Dragon Head, Geo-Coding the Urban Landscape: GIS and the Transformation of China's Urban Governance

Lin

2013

Urban Geography

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“…Any remaining faults are our own responsibilities. 2 It is, however, necessary to take into consideration the cautionary notes sounded by Dutton (1992) and Sigley (1996) on the applicability of the governmentality concept to China, including the significance of the collective (rather than the individual self) and the passive role of the expertise.…”

Section: Downloaded By [Istanbul Universitesi Kutuphane Ve Dok] At 04mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, through the household registration system, from a person's birth onward, his or her life and livelihood activities were under some forms of surveillance. This was particularly true to the urbanites where housing, food consumption, education, health, career, marriage, childbirth, divorce, and hygiene were administered by the state (Yang, 1989;Dutton, 1992;Sigley, 1996).…”

Section: Centrally Administered Urban System Planning Under the Pre-rmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban System Planning in China: A Case Study of the Pearl River Delta

Tang

1999

Urban Geography

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This paper argues that before 1978, the Chinese state, a "police state" in the Foucauldian concept of governmentality, aimed at total administration of the economy and society. Central investments determined local spatial development. Economic reforms and administrative decentralization after 1978 allowed local authorities to pursue their own development, leading to many planning problems. To regain control over spatial development, the state now employs urban system planning to regulate development in city regions. The Pearl River Delta Urban System Plan (PRDUSP) is a case in point. To overcome myopic regional development and environmental issues, the PRDUSP lays out a development strategy in which cities are organized into hierarchies around three metropolitan areas, have different functions, and are connected by development and growth axes. Various measures and policies also are recommended. All these suggest that the Provincial Government of Guangdong is searching for a new way of regional governance. [Key words: urban system planning, Pearl River Delta, China, governmentality, regional governance.] This paper investigates the relationship between urban system planning, the built environment, and the state in China, a subject that has never been investigated or debated seriously (Tang, 1998). Research on urban system planning in China frequently focuses on the ideal urban hierarchy, as seen through the dominant political lens in different periods of time: (1) the perspective of central planning or the "leftist" ideology before the initiation of economic reforms in 1978; and (2) the principle of economic efficiency after 591 has been done on how urban system planning actually is done, not to mention its theoretical basis. Kirkby (1985) summarized the academic debates during the early 1980s on whether large or small cities should be preferred. However, his work is largely descriptive and lacks a spatial perspective. His discussion also is not situated within the context of state governance, which has undergone dramatic changes in the last decade. Solinger (1993) attempted to view the economic reforms from the statist perspective. Nevertheless, as Perry (1994) argued, Solinger relied too much on an unnecessarily rigid state-society dichotomy. Moreover, Solinger's work has little to offer in terms of a better understanding of planning knowledge and practice.In order to understand the relationship between the built environment, urban system planning, and the Chinese state, we have to develop a new perspective. It is in this context that we find Foucault's concept of governmentality (Foucault, 1991;Tang, 1997a) useful. Foucault rejected a perspective concentrating on state institutions. Instead, he focused on the identification of programs and practices of rules in micro-settings. The strategy to understand the practice of the state is to decompose power into two lines of investigation: one includes political rationalities and programs of government, the other emphasizes technologies and techniques of government. T...

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“…The state then becomes a magical touchstone which is called upon to explain all manner of social phenomena in a Chinese context. 6 In terms of reproduction and population policy the finger is often pointed at the Chinese state for overstepping the mark and intervening in the private and sanctioned realm of the family and the individual (Sigley 1996). Whilst it is important to investigate the ways in which the state seeks to materialise its power throughout society, this must not preclude examination of the specific means by which governmental objects are themselves constructed and rendered amenable to intervention.…”

Section: Governmentality and Post-colonial Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Governing Chinese bodies: the Significance of studies in the concept of govermentality for the analysis of goverment in China

Cited by 47 publications

References 18 publications

Digitizing the Dragon Head, Geo-Coding the Urban Landscape: GIS and the Transformation of China's Urban Governance

Digitizing the Dragon Head, Geo-Coding the Urban Landscape: GIS and the Transformation of China's Urban Governance

Urban System Planning in China: A Case Study of the Pearl River Delta

“Peasants into chinamen”: population, reproduction and eugenics in contemporary China

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