Genealogy of Chinese Perceptions of “Polluted Air”: Conceptual Change and the Terminological Landscape of Air Pollution in Modern China

Genealogy of Chinese Perceptions of “Polluted Air”: Conceptual Change and the Terminological Landscape of Air Pollution in Modern China

本文通過概念史領域的理論和方法論視角，論述中國空氣品質和空氣污染的概念，提出這些視角與中國近現代尤其是20世紀20年代至70年代思想變遷的研究密切相關。通過分析19世紀40年代以來的中國話語用哪些術語來認知空氣與人體健康的關係，本研究揭示了概念變化與中國社會史的聯繫。起初有關空氣品質的問題與現代衛生觀念有關，而現代衛生觀念也是一種從西方翻譯並傳播到中國的知識。之後工業氣體排放成為了中國空氣和健康話語的一部分。20世紀70年代以來，有關空氣污染的通用概念在中國日益流行起來。科塞雷克和其他概念史的宣導者提出了現代性特徵的標準，這些標準經過調整後，非常適合分析概念變遷與現代性的關係。本研究認為，20世紀20年代至70年代，中國的空氣和健康概念產生了巨大轉變，這段時期是中國空氣污染概念史上的「鞍形」期。

"This article addresses Chinese concepts of air quality and air pollution by applying theoretical and methodological perspectives from the field of conceptual history, arguing for the relevance of these perspectives for the study of modern conceptual change in China, particularly in the period from the 1920s to the 1970s. By analyzing terms for the perceived relationship between air and health in Chinese discourse since the 1840s, a link can be made between conceptual changes and China’s social history. Questions about air quality were first attached to ideas about modern hygiene, translated and transposed as knowledge from the West. Later smoke emissions from industry became part of the Chinese discourse on air and health, after which, in the 1970s, generic concepts of air pollution were popularized in China. With some modifications, the criteria developed as traits of modernity by Koselleck and other advocates of conceptual history are well suited to analyze conceptual shifts and modernity. This article argues that the period between the 1920s and the 1970s was a period of major conceptual transformation with regard to air and health in China and is found to demarcate a saddle period in Chinese conceptual history with regard to air pollution."