Nieuwenhuis, Marijn (2013) Producing China : the politics of space in the making of modern China. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis entails an analysis of the relationship between space and politics in the
construction and legitimisation of modern China. The thesis argues that the production
of space has since the onset of modernity in China, in itself very much a spatial
process, played a substantial yet, largely unexplored and academically
unacknowledged role in both the construction of the nation state and the legitimisation
of political ideologies. I wish to show that the production of modern space has since
the mid-17th century played an increasingly vital role in the abstract concretisation
and the everyday diffusion of the geographic imagination of the Chinese nation state.
The state, in other words, legitimises its existence through the reification of space.
This thesis contributes to a historical and spatial understanding of the role of
geographies of power in creating an alternative understanding of what China is and
how it is (re-)produced spatially. Such an understanding problematises the realised
abstraction of the Chinese nation state and politicises the production and
representation of space in China. The thesis thus questions notions of Chinese
essentialism, Chinese history, Chinese architecture and other expressions of state
spaces. The position that this thesis takes is that the production of space gives form
and meaning to the political. The thesis looks at a variety of spatial techniques of
power by analysing the politics of cartography, urban planning, architecture and other
forms of production of space. By emphasising the politics of space, this thesis is a
work of political geography on the subject of modern Chinese state space. This thesis
comprises six chapters, an introduction and a conclusion.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races J Political Science > JQ Political institutions (Asia, Africa, Australia, Pacific Area, etc.)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	China -- Politics and government, Cities and towns -- China, Territory, National -- China, Space (Architecture) -- China
Official Date:	September 2013
Dates:	Date Event September 2013 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Politics and International Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Breslin, Shaun; Pirie, Iain
Extent:	ix, 380 leaves : illustrations, maps.
Language:	eng

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