Project description
Heritage in times of water scarcity
Rivers are part of our world heritage and instrumental in global efforts for sustainable development as related to water availability. The three most important sources of water are the Yellow, the Yangtze and the Mekong, whose headwaters are found in the Qinghai province in Tibet region, China. Local populations play a key role in heritage preservation including rivers. However, Tibet is a sensitive issue in China. The EU-funded HYSOTIB project aims to study the relationship between heritage and water studies, taking into consideration the existing ethnic, ecological and regional borders. The project will offer new knowledge on environmental and human challenges with the EU-China 2020 Strategic Cooperation Agenda in mind.
Objective
Global water challenges call urgently today for additional and deeper research by social scientists in order to achieve sustainability.
By combining methods of geo-morphology and anthropology, HYSOTIB will provide an in-depth ethnographic study of one of the globe’s key river heritage landscapes – the China’s Qinghai Headwaters including the sources of the Yellow, Yangtze and Mekong rivers. The on-going transformation of the the Qinghai headwaters into a national park hinges on a profound socio-ecological paradox, where the locals (97% ethnic Tibetan) are considered by Chinese authorities as both drivers of environmental impact as well as central to local natural and cultural heritage preservation practices. HYSOTIB will disentagle the underlying dynamics of this phenomenon by investigating socio-cultural and environmental issues, thus bridging the still huge scientific gap between heritage- and water/river studies. The primary fieldwork will take place at the upper reaches of the Yangtze river in the Yushu Tibetan Prefecture (Qinghai Province). Selected case-study areas from the Three-River Source National Nature Reserve will be examined as hydro-social contexts of global encounters arising within defined ecological, ethnic and territorial boundaries.
Thanks to the researcher’s knowledge in Tibetan and Chinese language, and her previous fieldwork experience in Tibetan areas of China, HYSOTIB will provide a timely and improved understanding of the global context. Urgent environmental and anthropic risks, currently at the core of the EU-China 2020 Strategic Cooperation Agenda, will be addressed. The training in river science and heritage studies at the universities of Auckland (NZ) and Ca’ Foscari in Venice (IT) will significantly cement the candidate’s status as a leading geo-social scientist.
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
30123 Venezia
Italy