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3 - Deodorizing China

from Part Two - Smellscapes in Flux

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 July 2023

Xuelei Huang
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Summary

Chapter 3 undertakes a comparative study of three deodorization projects in Shanghai, conducted respectively by Western colonial administrations from the 1850s to the 1890s, reform-minded Chinese gentry of the late Qing and early Republic, and the Communists in the 1950s, with a focus on the trope of stagnant water. Despite their disparate, if not antithetic, motives and rhetoric, these projects forged a continuous Chinese olfactory revolution through a common commitment to the progressive ideology of deodorization. I scrutinize how the threads of olfactory modernity tied in with a series of spatializing projects during the urbanization of Shanghai, and how these undertakings brought about an uneven redistribution of sensescapes alongside capital and symbolic capital. I argue that the outcome of battling against contamination was not purity, but a stratified reorganization of purified and contaminated spaces.

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Chapter
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Scents of China
A Modern History of Smell
, pp. 101 - 142
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Deodorizing China
  • Xuelei Huang, University of Edinburgh
  • Book: Scents of China
  • Online publication: 20 July 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009207065.006
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  • Deodorizing China
  • Xuelei Huang, University of Edinburgh
  • Book: Scents of China
  • Online publication: 20 July 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009207065.006
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Deodorizing China
  • Xuelei Huang, University of Edinburgh
  • Book: Scents of China
  • Online publication: 20 July 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009207065.006
Available formats
×