New Video and Blog: Insights from Our Fieldwork in China
In November 2025, the PLURALIZE research team conducted fieldwork in Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in western Sichuan, China, as part of our project on Environmental Justice and Green Transition in Ganzi.
In November 2025, our research team conducted fieldwork in Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in western Sichuan, China, as part of our project on Environmental Justice and Green Transition in Ganzi. This is part of the research for the 5 year PLURALIZE proejct.
Ganzi is a region at the forefront of China’s environmental governance and ecological civilisation agenda. Rich in natural resources and home to diverse Tibetan communities, the area is experiencing significant changes driven by ecological conservation programmes, renewable energy development, and expansion of tourism industry. Our research seeks to understand how these transformations are experienced by different groups and what they mean for environmental justice in the region. A key focus of the project is to understand how local traditions, cultural values, religious practices, community knowledge, and the everyday experiences of local communities interact with state policies and governance in shaping socio-environmental transitions. Through an environmental justice lens, we explore how people experience and respond to environmental and development initiatives in their daily lives.
During the fieldwork, we travelled across several locations in Ganzi and conducted interviews and informal conversations with a wide range of stakeholders. These included local policymakers, local residents, business owners and tourism operators, monastery representatives, students, artists, and other community members. Through these discussions, we explored local perspectives on environmental protection, economic development, livelihood changes, participation in decision-making, and visions for the future. We were particularly interested in understanding how local knowledge and traditions contribute to environmental stewardship and how these perspectives interact with state-led development and conservation initiatives.
The fieldwork revealed a complex and often contested picture of socio-environmental transition in Ganzi. Interviews highlighted ongoing tensions between state-led agendas of environmental protection and economic development and the ways local communities understand and practice their everyday lives. While some participants viewed ecological conservation, tourism, and green development initiatives as creating new opportunities, others expressed concerns about changes to traditional livelihoods, cultural practices, and local autonomy. As one respondent reflected:
State policies and development agendas have brought significant changes to this place and to our lives. We now enjoy a much more comfortable material life, but sometimes we still miss the way we lived when we were children. It is difficult to say whether these changes are all good or bad—we simply adapt to them.
Dr Shizhi Zhang, PLURALIZE Researcher
The insights gathered during this trip will contribute to our ongoing research on environmental justice and socio-environmental transition, helping to capture the geographical diversity and complexity of environmental change across China.
Watch the short film: https://shorturl.at/xTkVT