This is a study that focuses on the art and architecture of a group of Buddhist rock-cut monuments excavated on the western edge of the Deccan Plateau in India. It analyses the various cultural, historical and religious phenomena that shaped the caves at Aurangabad through the first seven centuries of the Common Era and it comments on the Buddhist tradition of the western Deccan as a whole. The result is a comprehensive work that does not address exclusively iconography and chronology, but looks beyond Aurangabad to the larger artistic and religious traditions of the Indian Subcontinent.
Explores the growing water supply crisis through an ethnographic study of a rural minority community in China threatened by climate change. China is experiencing climate whiplash—extreme fluctuations between drought and flooding—that threatens the health and autonomy of millions of people. Set against mounting anxiety over the future of global water supplies, Cutting the Mass Line explores the enduring political, technical, and ethical project of making water available to human communities and ecosystems in a time of drought, infrastructural disrepair, and environmental breakdown. Anthropologist Andrea E. Pia explores essential questions of how to manage water resources from the vantage point of Huize County, a water-challenged, ecologically damaged, multi-ethnic area in rural Yunnan Province. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, archival materials, and statistical data, Pia brings readers inside the inner workings of China's complex water supply ecosystem by exploring the intricate relationships among Chinese water services agencies; water user associations; dam construction sites; party cadres and rural entrepreneurs, mediators, and farmers; and foreign development planners. The climate crisis and the global politics of sustainability and mitigation offer unanticipated leeway for experimental grassroots intrusions in what has traditionally been the sphere of elite regulatory action: water allocation and distribution. Rural residents' efforts to keep access to local water sources and flourish in their own communities are moving the political possibilities of climate and environmental collective action in exciting and unforeseen directions. As the world grapples with challenges to water quality, supply, and control, the impacts of China's resource management strategies will be a provocative and useful study for the future.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.