From China's urban social space to social and environmental justice

A senior American specialist on China and noted geographer argues that the preoccupation of China geographers' with empirical analyses of that country's dramatic economic, social, and urban transformation over the last two decades-usually explained in terms of the now familiar quadruple forces of globalization, marketization, deregulation, and decentralization-should be broadened to reflect a concern for the problems of disadvantaged groups impacted negatively in dynamic urban and environmental settings. The methodology of reflexive activism is proposed as affording a framework for a more relevant geography focused on the study of China, with the potential to bring about positive and constructive change on behalf of China's disadvantaged population and its natural environment, and (as a possible side benefit) generate local epistemologies enriching the study of geography more broadly.