Aesthetic governance and China's rural toilet revolution

Abstract

This article addresses aesthetic politics in the Chinese rural toilet revolution. Toilet retrofitting is conventionally regarded as an issue of sanitation improvement, but in the emerging trend of rural post-productivism transformation, toilets have become contested sites of aesthetic governance in rural development. Using the case of a village in Northern China, the authors show that, in order to beautify the rural environment, toilet identification, selection, placement and demolition are all directed by aesthetic norms for a beautiful village. Additionally, the aestheticization of village development has legitimized state-led development by creating a common-sense understanding of and imagination for the future. However, aesthetic logics can represent a mismatch with the realities of local lives, resulting in place alienation and suspended development. This article unpacks the logics, mechanisms and spatial-social processes of aesthetic governance in the Chinese toilet revolution.