Download This PaperChina's Cancer Villages
Forthcoming, The Cambridge Handbook on Environmental Justice and Sustainable Development, eds. Sumudu Atapattu, Carmen G. Gonzalez and Sara Seck
19 Pages Posted: 15 Nov 2018
Date Written: November 2, 2018
Abstract
The chapter describes the phenomenon of cancer villages in China, which have come to widespread public attention only within the past decade. So-called because they constitute cancer clusters that are mainly found in the rural countryside, their stories show that even China, with its socialist past and rhetoric of egalitarianism, has not been immune from environmental inequity and injustice. The chapter focuses on one of the best-known sets of cancer villages as a case study, the Wengyuan County Cancer Villages in Guangdong Province. In providing context to the challenges that these communities face as well as the causes of their plight, the chapter seeks to put this issue into the context of the broader environmental justice movement and global work toward sustainable development.
Keywords: Environmental Justice, Cancer Villages, Sustainability, China Environmental Governance
JEL Classification: K32, Q52, Q56
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation