Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how a Chinese village was transformed to be a technical end of an infrastructure, incorporating water projects, local bureaucrats, and villagers. Local uneven weather patterns are folded into the state's developmental agendas.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the interaction between a Chinese village and an extensive flood-control infrastructure situated in the Dongting basin, the middle section of Yangtze River in China. The village, which I pseudonymized as Hecun, is located along the border between the Dongting water network and a significant mountain range.

Firstly, I examine how the state scientifically identifies the upstream and middle stream’s weather patterns in the Yangtze area, i.e., the heavy storms, as the primary cause of flooding in the Dongting basin. Hecun is administratively and scientifically confined to flood-prone areas within the basin. A flood-control infrastructure is committed to address these weather-water issues. Secondly, I show that Hecun’s primary farming activity, rice cultivation, is primarily affected by droughts rather than floods. The specific geographical location of Hecun, being closer to the mountain range, accounts for this. But structurally, Hecun has significantly been involved in and works as a technical endpoint of the flood-control infrastructure system, incorporating water projects, local bureaucrats, and villagers. I argue that in this mountain-water borderland, local uneven weather patterns are folded into the state's macro-political and economic agendas and rendered invisible. Hecun villagers had to devise their own strategies to cope with the environmental challenges.