Excerpt
Full text document will be published online on December 2025.
Outline
Introduction
Literature review and conceptual framework
Beyond boundary lines: Borders as state territorial tools
Borderland margins: Regulation and integration to state territory through territorial restructuring
Research methodology and data collection challenges
Case presentation: Snapshot of a “lagging behind” borderland margin
State approach to borderland margin Nujiang: Resolving marginality through development policies
Development through hydropower: Building Nujiang’s integration into national territory
Using tourism to lift Nujiang out of poverty: A territorial restructuring policy
Residents upholding their sense of territory amid restructuring: A mark of agency in territory production
The limited scope of resident’s negotiations over resettlement and habitat change
Maize ban protests: Balancing government imperatives and local stability
Discussion and concluding perspectives
First lines
Introduction
Located in the Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, in the far northwestern corner of Yunnan Province, wedged between Tibet and Myanmar, the Nujiang River Valley (hereafter “Nujiang”) is predominantly inhabited by ethnic minorities living in national margins, such as the Lisu, Nu, Dulong, and Tibetans. The valley has long been identified by the state as one of the many western border regions where local economic systems and spatial organisations are deemed “lagging-behind” (luohou 落後) and in need of economic development and restructuring (Donaldson 2007; Brown and Xu 2010). For decades, Nujiang has been one of the most economically challenged areas of Yunnan. The central government included its counties within western Yunnan’s concentrated and contiguous poverty area (jizhong lianpian tekun diqu 集中連片特困地區), as they combine multidimensional poverty issues stemming from mountainous, ethnic, and rural borderland characteristics that are common throughout the province, and in ...
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References
Bibliographical reference
David Juilien, “Negotiating Territorial Restructuring in Chinese Borderland Margins: The Viewpoints of Residents of Nujiang, Yunnan”, China Perspectives, 139 | 2024, 21-32.
Electronic reference
David Juilien, “Negotiating Territorial Restructuring in Chinese Borderland Margins: The Viewpoints of Residents of Nujiang, Yunnan”, China Perspectives [Online], 139 | 2024, Online since 01 December 2025, connection on 17 January 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/17614; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/130gs
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