"Only Clear Water Flows East": Hero Narratives, Environmentalism, and Cultural Debt in Tibetan-Language Documentary Television of the People's Republic of China
"Only Clear Water Flows East": Hero Narratives, Environmentalism, and Cultural Debt in Tibetan-Language Documentary Television of the People's Republic of China
Date
2022
Authors
Hayes, Caitlin Rose
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Clayton, Cathryn H.
Department
Asian Studies
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Abstract
Since the latter half of the Twentieth century, the People’s Republic of China has enacted various strategies to combat grassland degradation on the Tibetan Plateau; many of these strategies have revolved around encouraging rural ethnic Tibetans to give up their traditional lifeways – such as semi-nomadic agro-pastoralism – in the name of environmental protection. One unique avenue by which the state transmits these messages is via depictions heroic and exemplary figures as portrayed in Tibetan-language satellite television programs. This paper analyses a two-part television newsmagazine documentary originally aired on a Sichuan-based satellite station and aimed at the residents of the Sanjiangyuan region of southern Qinghai Province. By amplifying the stories of a diverse array of ethnic Tibetan environmentalist workers and volunteers, this documentary series seeks to encourage and inspire Sanjiangyuan’s rural Tibetan residents to become involved in state-promoted environmental protection initiatives at the potential expense of their cultural and financial well-being. In doing so, the state seeks to instill in its ethnic Tibetan population a sense of responsibility in environmental stewardship for the benefit of the entire Chinese nation. By reframing Tibetans’ participation in environmental protection as a form of repayment for debts incurred for social and economic development on the plateau, the state seeks to insert itself into the historical and cultural relationships between Tibetans and their physical environments.
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Asian studies,
China,
documentary television,
environmentalism,
hero narratives,
Tibet
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100 pages
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