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| THE LITERARYWRITING OF CHINA'S URBANIZATION IN THE POST-REFORM ERA: A SOCIO-SPATIAL DIALECTICALANALYSIS ON THE CHRONICLE OF ZHALIE |
| AN Ning1,2, QIAN Jun-xi1 |
1. Centre for Cultural Industry and Cultural Geography, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China;
2. School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK |
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Abstract Texts are important materials for geographical research. It is by attending to texts that we build up specific systems of symbols, discourses and knowledge, in order to reach a coherent understanding of the world. Texts are produced socially. Therefore, analysis of texts provides a useful lens to understand the lived experiences of social formation and transformation. In line with this theoretical stance, this paper uses textual analysis as the point of departure, and develops an interpretation of the novel The Chronicle of Zhalie, written by the novelist Yan Lianke, which delineates the trajectory of rapid development and urbanization in a fictional village named Zhalie. It bases its analysis on the approach of socio-spatial dialectic, in order to interpret how literary writing not only represents, but also critically reflects on, the recent urbanization of China. Participating in an imagined world that weaves together multiple and intersecting realities to elicit deep thinking, the readers are presented with the possibility to look into the multi-layered nature of socio-spatial transformation. In particular, socio-spatial dialectic offers an important direction for interpreting the text at question, because this perspective points out that the formation of the social necessarily involves the reproduction of the spatial, and that space is constitutive of social transformations, social relations, and relations of power.
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Received: 17 September 2015
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2017, Vol. 32 
