Airborne: Pollution, Climate Change, and Visions of Sustainability in China
Airborne studies human dimensions of air pollution in China in a historical perspective. How do people’s experiences and fears of air pollution transform into new visions of sustainability and creative forms of action?
In 2013, people concerned with air pollution provided statues in Beijing University with face masks. (Photo circulated on Weibo)
雾与霾：空气污染与中国可持续发展的新愿景
About Airborne
Airborne starts from the assumption that people’s experiences and imaginaries of the impact of air pollution are in the process of transforming into entirely new visions of sustainability and creative forms of action in China, the world’s largest energy consuming state. We explore how political authorities, industry, scientists, population and media interact in responding to the inseparable risks of air pollution in China and global climate change.
Airborne is organized in three interdisciplinary cases where sub-studies are carried out in smaller research teams with scholars from the disciplines of anthropology, political science, chemistry, media science, and sinology.
- Case 1: The Interface between Air Pollution Science and People
- Case 2: China's Air Pollution Control Policy Goes Local
- Case 3: The Class and Gender of Individual Air Pollution Exposure
The project period runs from March 1st 2015 to February 28th 2019.
News
Objectives
The project will conduct a historically grounded and future-oriented study into how popular experiences and scientifically produced knowledge of air pollution and climate change lead to new and creative mitigation policies and expectations of sustainable lifestyles in China.
Outcomes
Research started in March 2015. After more than a year of collective data collection, the project participants will gather from August 2016 to July 2017 at the Centre for Advanced Study (CAS) in Oslo to start co-writing articles for an international readership and for an edited book in Chinese aimed at a broader readership.
Following the year at CAS participants will proceed with further data collection, and a smaller team will start co-writing an academic monograph aimed at an international top-level academic publisher. Other individual and co-written articles will be produced continuously throughout the project period.
Two Phd students will finalize their thesis in 2018, and one postdoctoral scholar will publish two articles in international journals.
Airborne wants to promote co-publication across national and disciplinary boundaries, and to support junior and female scholars in the field of environmental and China studies.
Furthermore, Airborne aims to disseminate its findings to a broader public in Norway and China, and wants to engage in discussion and dialogue with interested environmental organizations and environmental bureaus in China and elsewhere.
Financing
Airborne has funding from:
- The Research Council of Norway (FRIPRO) for 4 years (from March 2015).
- Centre for Advanced Study (Senter for grunnforskning) for 11 months (August 2016 - July 2017).
- The Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Studies, University of Oslo.
- The research program UiO: Energy, University of Oslo.
- Zhejiang University
Cooperation
The project's main partner institution in China is the Institute of Anthropology at Zhejiang University.
Publications
- Rune Svarverud (2019). Genealogy of Chinese Perceptions of “Polluted Air”: Conceptual Change and the Terminological Landscape of Air Pollution in Modern China. 東亞觀念史集刊. ISSN 2303-9205.
- Kristin Aunan; Mette Halskov Hansen; Zhaohui Liu & Shuxiao Wang (2019). The Hidden Hazard of Household Air Pollution in Rural China. Environmental Science and Policy. ISSN 1462-9011. 93, s 27- 33
- Ruolan Hu; Shuxiao Wang; Kristin Aunan; M.J. Zhao; L. Chen; Zhaohui Liu & Mette Halskov Hansen (2019). Personal exposure to PM2.5 in Chinese rural households in the Yangtze River Delta. Indoor Air: International Journal of Indoor Environment and Health. ISSN 0905-6947. 29
- Anna Lisa Ahlers & Yongdong Shen (2019). Blue Sky Fabrication in China: Science-Policy Integration in Air Pollution Regulation Campaigns for Mega-Events. Environmental Science and Policy. ISSN 1462-9011. 94, s 135- 142
- Hongtao Li & Rune Svarverud (2018). When London Hit the Headlines: Historical Analogy and the Chinese Media Discourse on Air Pollution. The China Quarterly. ISSN 0305-7410. 234, s 357- 376
- Mette Halskov Hansen & Zhaohui Liu (2018). Air Pollution and Grassroots Echoes of “Ecological Civilization” in Rural China. The China Quarterly. ISSN 0305-7410. 234, s 320- 339
- Kristin Aunan; Qiao Ma; Marianne Tronstad Lund & Shuxiao Wang (2018). Population-weighted exposure to PM 2.5 pollution in China: An integrated approach. Environment International. ISSN 0160-4120. 120, s 111- 120
- Anna Lisa Ahlers & Yongdong Shen (2018). Local Environmental Governance Innovation in China: Staging ‘Triangular Dialogues’ for Industrial Air Pollution Control. Journal of Chinese Governance. ISSN 2381-2346. 3, s 351- 369
- Mette Halskov Hansen; Hongtao Li & Rune Svarverud (2018). Ecological civilization: Interpreting the Chinese past, projecting the global future. Global Environmental Change. ISSN 0959-3780. 53, s 195- 203
- Rune Svarverud (2018). Ventilation for the Nation: Fresh Air, Sunshine, and the Warfare on Germs in China's National Quest for Hygienic Modernity, 1849-1949. Environment and History. ISSN 0967-3407.
- Bin Zhao; Haotian Zheng; Shuxiao Wang; Kirk R. Smith; Xi Lu; Kristin Aunan; Yu Gu; Yuan Wang; Dian Ding; Jia Xing; Xiao Fu; Xudong Yang; Kuo-Nan Liou & Jiming Hao (2018). Change in household fuels dominates the decrease in PM2.5 exposure and premature mortality in China in 2005–2015. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. ISSN 0027-8424. 115, s 12401- 12406
- Kristin Aunan; Mette Halskov Hansen & Shuxiao Wang (2018). Introduction: Air Pollution in China. The China Quarterly. ISSN 0305-7410. 234, s 279- 298
- Mette Halskov Hansen & Anna Lisa Ahlers (2017). Air Pollution: How Will China Win its Self-Declared War Against it?, In Eva Sternfeld (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Environmental Policy in China. Routledge. ISBN 1138831115. kapittel.
- Anna Lisa Ahlers & Yongdong Shen (2017). Breathe Easy? Local Nuances of Authoritarian Environmentalism in China's Battle against Air Pollution. The China Quarterly. ISSN 0305-7410. 234, s 299- 319
- Rune Svarverud (2014). The Terminological Battle for 'Air' in Modern China. Wakumon. ISSN 1345-9899. 26, s 23- 44
- Zhaohui Liu & Mette Halskov Hansen (ed.) (2018). 仰望窗外的天空--中外科学家对话空气环境与治理. Zhejiang University Press. ISBN 978-7-308-18125-9. 193 s.
- Hedda Flatø (2019). Polluted perspectives: Perceived air quality, economic well-being and trust in China’s local governments.
- Anna Lisa Ahlers (2018). 让蓝天重新绽放:德国鲁尔区的空气污染与治理, In Zhaohui Liu & Mette Halskov Hansen (ed.), 仰望窗外的天空--中外科学家对话空气环境与治理. Zhejiang University Press. ISBN 978-7-308-18125-9. 4.2. s 133 - 145
- Anna Lisa Ahlers & Yongdong Shen (2018). 中国城市大气污染治理的政策与行动, In Zhaohui Liu & Mette Halskov Hansen (ed.), 仰望窗外的天空--中外科学家对话空气环境与治理. Zhejiang University Press. ISBN 978-7-308-18125-9. 4.3. s 146 - 154
- Kristin Aunan (2018). Exposure matters: Integrated Population-Weighted Exposure as a metric for cost-effective and equitable air pollution abatement..
- Hedda Flatø (2018). Class, air pollution and air quality awareness in China.
- Hedda Flatø (2018). Risk, inequality and popular demand for government environmental protection in China.
- Kristin Aunan (2017). China's 'Airpocalypse'. Impacts on human health and current efforts to reduce air pollution.
- Kristin Aunan & Shuxiao Wang (2017). The role of household energy for population exposure and equitable air pollution policies.
- (2017). Muligens godt nytt: Kina puster tungt.
- Anna Lisa Ahlers (2017). invited book review - "Ma Jun, 'The Economics of Air Pollution in China: Achieving Better and Cleaner Growth', New York: Columbia University Press, 2017". The China Quarterly. ISSN 0305-7410. s 814- 815
- Kristin Aunan & Shuxiao Wang (2016). Air pollution in China. Concentration levels, exposure, and health damage – status and trends.
- (2015). Protest against Industrial Air Pollution: A Case from Hangzhou City, China.
- Anna Lisa Ahlers (2015). 鲁尔区“变回蓝天”对北京的启示 (Title of English version: "How the Sky over the Ruhr Became Blue Again - Or: A German researcher’s optimism about China’s opportunities to tackle the problem of air pollution"). 小康 Xiaokang (Insight China). ISSN 1672-4879.