Zuev, Denis | Russia

Denis Zuev

Denis Zuev graduated from Krasnoyarsk State University with  specialization in Chinese Studies. He worked as a Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies at Siberian Federal University, Russia, as a researcher in Karelian Institute, Finland, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Germany, Centre for Mobilities Research and Institute of Social Futures, Lancaster University, UK and was visiting professor at Kuopio University, Finland (2008) and Graz University, Austria (2010). Currently Dr Zuev is a researcher at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology, Lisbon, Portugal. He is a co-founder and Vice-president of the ISA Research Committee in Visual Sociology (2010-2018). He has published extensively in Chinese Studies, mobilities and visual methods.
 

Project at IAS-STS: Eco-civilizational politics of e-waste recycling in China

In this work I intend to examine the ongoing changes in “green politics” in China by focusing on the instant of e-waste recycling and specifically, transformations in one given town (Guiyu). It is argued that spontaneous stage of development in e-waste recycling has become the object of civilizational politics, which includes formalization, centralization, spatial and visual evolution of the recycling site. The civilizational politics is conceptualized as an approach to adapting to the existing socio-technical conditions. A new infrastructural regime is introduced and is discursively framed as a civilized one: modern, environmentally friendly and socially beneficial. “Informal” sector in e-waste recycling is the main target of civilizational politics, as it is associated with “low-tech” and polluting technologies, small-scale enterprizes and powered by migrant labour. While the target of civilizational politics is upscaling via creation of large centralized “formal” facilities, the social and environmental sustainability of such transition should be put under scrutiny.

My interest lies not only in the reconfiguration of (e)waste regime in China and broadly, in emerging economies, but also in the political and cultural dimensions of sociotechnical transitions, the role of informal sector and emerging system of power relations.

 

Selected Publications

Urban Mobility in Modern China: The growth of the E-bike. Palgrave McMillan: New York. 2018

Where is the politics? E-bike mobility in urban China and civilizational government. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transition. 2018 (online first), special issue on “Low Carbon China” (with D. Tyfield and J. Urry)

Stasis, dynamism and emergence of the e-mobility system in China: A power relational perspective, Technological Forecasting & Social Change 2017. 126: 259-270 (with D. Tyfield)

Couchsurfing as a Spatial Practice: accessing and producing xenotopos, Hospitality and Society. 2011. 1(3): 227-244

Analysis of YouTube Videos Used by Activists in the Uyghur Nationalist Movement: combining quantitative and qualitative methods.  Journal of Contemporary China, 2011. 20(69): 205–229 (with M. Vergani)