March’s second scholar spotlight features Andrew Grant @angrant_1 and what will surely be his seminal work on urbanization, infrastructure, and #ethnicity in western China/eastern #Tibet, esp. Xining. Currently, Andrew is a VAP at @BostonCollege's International Studies Program. 
Grant’s research provides sparkling examples of the cutting-edge work on Sino-Tibetan studies produced by geographers. Thorough, balanced, and with nuanced application of theory, his publications appear in @Pol_Geog_Jl, @CriticAsianStds, and Eurasian Journal of Geo and Econ.
His forthcoming book, “Borders of Global China,” will be published next year by @CambridgeUP. This book will be part of the Global China Elements Series edited by CK Lee.
His 2018 @CriticAsianStds article, “Hyperbuilding the civilized city,” is essential reading for anyone interested in the politics and intersections of urbanized space and ethnicity in contemporary China. tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…
With thick descriptive prose seldom seen in recent scholarship on China, Grant transports the reader to a '17 conservation with a Tibetan interlocutor about “civilized cities” (文明城市). He uses this encounter as a launching point to discuss China’s recent urbanization campaigns
New construction, especially housing developments, become new spaces for ethnicity to be reproduced, negotiated, and contested. Xining, the site of this research, is pivotal as it’s viewed by Han and Tibetans as a type of geographic, ethnic, and cultural frontier—even backwater.
Drawing on Chinese indigenous concepts of “civilization” (文明) and embodied quality (素质) and their application in contemporary Chinese discourse, Grant shows that “progress” and “advancement” are inseparable from Han geographies (human, political, cultural).
The CCP’s mapping of these geographies on political, ethnic, and cultural “peripheries” produces uneven results. This discussion is where Grant is at his best: he presents local (i.e. Xining residents’) reactions in the beautiful messiness that they are.
In other words, state discourses on civilization in China are internalized, contested, and rejected on individual levels. Yet, they still marginalize non-Han cultures.
He argues: "Whether mobilized by the Han majority or by one ethnic minority group against another, the civilized city discourse is part of a gen. revaluing of urban space in 西宁 that associates minority ethnicity places w/ underdevelopment, a lack of civilization, & low quality"
For more of Andrew’s exciting research, check out his beautifully curated website: angrant.com
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