Tea Production, Land Use Politics and Ethnic Minorities Struggling Over Dilemmas in China's Southwest Frontier

About this book

In Tea Production, Land Use Politics and Ethnic Minorities, Po-Yi Hung uses tea production as a lens to investigate the tension between nature and society under the market economy in frontier China. By focusing on the landscape of the 'ancient tea forest' (guchalin), this book aims to understand the interactions among tea trees, entrepreneurs, the state, and the Bulang, an ethnic minority population. Intensive ethnographic research conducted by the author examines local Bulang villagers' everyday lives as entrepreneurs in the market economy at a time of changing moralities and cultural renovations. The author explores the dilemmas that arise in this unique region between tradition and modernity, territorial margin and connected space, and nature and development.

Contents

Introduction
1. Tea Production and Dilemmas on China's Southwest Frontier

PART I: HARVESTING
2. Property

PART II: PROCESSING
3. Quality
4. Hierarchy

PART III: SELLING
5. Landscape
6. Ritual

Conclusion
7. Production of Tea, Reproduction of Dilemma, and Remaking of Place

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Biography

Po-Yi Hung is Assistant Professor of geography at National Taiwan University. His research focuses on nature-society relations, food, and agriculture in China, Taiwan, East Asia, and Southeast Asia.