The anxiety of (mis)naming: Chronotopic affects in mapping China's geo-databases.
This article analyzes the emergence and circulation of affects in technological projects, with a focus on China's national land survey, the Land Right Authorization. Rural residents, whose livelihoods and identification are intertwined with their familial land, expressed frustration over survey 'err...
| Publicado en: | History & Anthropology Vol. 37; no. 1; pp. 73 - 99 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Feb2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=192172467&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 192172467 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 02757206 7VZ jtl: History & Anthropology issn: 02757206 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Feb2026 vid: 37 iid: 1 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 192172467 10.1080/02757206.2025.2497253 ppf: 73 ppct: 26 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 1.1MB tig: atl: The anxiety of (mis)naming: Chronotopic affects in mapping China's geo-databases. aug: au: Long, Sheng affil: Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA Anthropology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA su: Geodatabases Geographic information systems Surveying (Engineering) Land tenure Property rights China sug: subj: China Geodatabases Geographic information systems Surveying (Engineering) Land tenure Property rights keyword: Affects chronotope land naming technology ab: This article analyzes the emergence and circulation of affects in technological projects, with a focus on China's national land survey, the Land Right Authorization. Rural residents, whose livelihoods and identification are intertwined with their familial land, expressed frustration over survey 'errors', such as mistaken placenames. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research in rural Meixian, southeast China, this article shows that these 'native names' (tuming) were legally recognized across multiple regimes as valid references for identifying land property. During the Land Right Authorization, however, rural placenames documented in the survey reports often differed from those locally recognized and historically embedded toponyms. Rural landholders' affective responses to such semiotic discrepancies show their competing ways of understanding the rural and the urban, the conventional and the technical. I introduce the concept of 'chronotopic affects' to capture social sentiments linked to time and space. Chronotopic affects are emotive moments – both public and personal – that arise when time-space references are aligned or misaligned. The state's land survey provides an example of such cross-time-space communication. This article argues for greater attention to the affective dimensions in science and technology, suggesting that social affects do not merely accompany technical practices, but shape the trajectories of projects that might otherwise seem neutral and impersonal. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of History & Anthropology is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: History & Anthropology holder: Taylor & Francis Ltd dt: @attributes: year: 2026 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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