Confucius Insitute Talk: Everyday Matters - Urbanisation and Sanitation in China

13 Apr 2018

A talk about the different ways in which everyday hygiene practices in urban China influence how long-term residents, newcomers from the rural countryside and other groups in the city live together

Dr Deljana Iossifova will present how communities practiced sanitation and how cities handled night soil in recent history. Today, to match what is expected from ‘world-class’ cities, China relies largely on sanitation infrastructure similar to that in the West. 

However, as the country undergoes so-called ‘high-speed urbanisation’, not all cities and not all urban areas within cities can keep up with the speed of modernisation. Pockets of poverty remain and often coincide with pockets of outdated (in the eyes of city planners) sanitation infrastructures. 

We will explore how the coexistence of the old and the new; the poor and the rich; the traditional and the modern is experienced in the everyday of urban residents and how these experiences shape how people in China’s dense cities live together.

This free event will be held on 16 April, from 1pm until 2pm in the Kanaris Lecture Theatre, Manchester Museum.