Title: Changing Waterscapes, Altered Territories, and Regionmaking in the Greater Bay Area
Speaker: Prof. Adam E. Grydehøj, South China University of Technology
Time: 15:00 pm, November 20, 2024
Venue: Room 105，Building No.12, Wushan Campus
Introduction to the speaker:
Adam Grydehøj is professor at South China University of Technology’s School of Foreign Languages and Research Center for Indian Ocean Island Countries. He studies the intersection of culture, politics, and economy in island space. He is editor of the journal Folk, Knowledge, Place and has published over 80 book chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles. Together with Professor Su Ping, he has written the book China and the pursuit of harmony in world politics: Understanding Chinese international relations theory, published by Routledge.
Abstract:
The Greater Bay Area is today a driver of the Chinese economy and one of the world’s largest megaregions. Why did this area become important, and how did it come to be seen as a region? This presentation critically analyses the Greater Bay Area’s history, starting in precolonial times in which the Chinese population saw the area as composed of islands and waterways, moving through the period when colonial powers saw the area as a pathway up from the colonial island enclaves of Hong Kong and Macao and into China’s interior, and ending in the Reform and Opening Up era when the modern Chinese state has implemented a succession of planning-oriented conceptions of the region. As the area has moved conceptually from a world of islands to a delta and now to the Greater Bay Area, perceptions about what the area means have changed as well.
