Social Changes and the Gender-Environment Nexus in Contemporary Rural China: Evidence from an Inner Mongolian Village

Agrarian development in China was basically characterized by contrasting stages of collectivization and decollectivization over the past six decades, and each resulted in sweeping social and economic changes. The lived experiences of rural women’s and men’s daily productive and reproductive activities in specific geographic settings, may have shaped their surrounding environment and vice versa. So far, research on the linkages between gender and the environment in rural China has received little attention and no empirical study at the village level has been carried out. Based upon an ethnographic fieldwork in an Inner Mongolian village, this article seeks to document the evolution of the gender-environment nexus and explore its determinants in larger processes over the past 60 years. A closer look at everyday experiences of local men and women indicates that the complex intersections of gender and the environment occurred in larger processes at the macro level, which were closely linked to the role of the powerful state. The dynamic relations were implicated simultaneously in shifting social norms and practices at the local level. This paper therefore suggests a holistic approach towards understanding of shifting and complex intersections, contributing to ongoing feminist debates on women/gender and the environment.