Rainwater harvesting in Gansu Province, China: Development and modernity in a state sponsored rural water supply project

This dissertation is an ethnographic analysis of the promotion of rainwater harvesting in Gansu province, China. The study examines the project from a number of different angles, including its concrete effects in rural areas, the discourses and conceptions surrounding it, and the implications of the project for rural development and resource management in China's western regions. The dissemination of rainwater harvesting in Gansu is an intriguing example of a development intervention. It is a rare case of a state sponsored development program that succeeded in many respects, particularly in the delivery of drinking water to rural areas. Ironically, this success was achieved despite the program's situation within a problematic conceptual framework---present at the local and national level---which reifies technology as an end in itself and denigrates rural people as ignorant and backward. Although rainwater harvesting represents an unusual example of development both in China and internationally, it was not perceived as such by those who created and promoted it, and this in turn facilitated its large-scale dissemination in an otherwise technocratic environment. The case study offers lessons about the role of the state, market, civil society and science in development, and suggests that a broader conception of development and modernity in China would better serve human welfare and the environment than current official approaches.