IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v61y2024i15p2995-3011.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Heat, cold and climatic determinism in China’s urban epidemics

Author

Listed:
  • Liz PY Chee

    (National University of Singapore, Singapore)

  • Dongxin Zou

    (National University of Singapore, Singapore)

  • Gregory Clancey

    (National University of Singapore, Singapore)

Abstract

‘Thermal governance’ has been discussed elsewhere as the regulation of temperature through infrastructure, technology and social and political organisation. We extend it here to include a subtle and heretofore under-recognised element of public health: the governance of recent urban epidemics by the Chinese state. The SARS epidemic of 2002–2003 in Guangzhou and more markedly the COVID-19 epidemic in Wuhan triggered massive emergency responses by public health authorities which differed from previous strategies in more fully activating the state health sector known in China as Chinese Medicine ( zhongyi ) and outside China as Traditional Chinese Medicine. With this enlistment comes a body of theory and practice which makes meteorology central to diagnostic and prescriptive processes, and reinforces as part of state discourse the long-standing Chinese cultural understanding of ‘heat’ as an internal micro-climatic element transcending temperature.

Suggested Citation

  • Liz PY Chee & Dongxin Zou & Gregory Clancey, 2024. "Heat, cold and climatic determinism in China’s urban epidemics," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(15), pages 2995-3011, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:61:y:2024:i:15:p:2995-3011
    DOI: 10.1177/00420980221130272
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00420980221130272
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/00420980221130272?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:61:y:2024:i:15:p:2995-3011. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.