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

Liz PY Chee, Dongxin Zou and Gregory Clancey
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Liz PY Chee: National University of Singapore, Singapore
Dongxin Zou: National University of Singapore, Singapore
Gregory Clancey: National University of Singapore, Singapore

Urban Studies, 2024, vol. 61, issue 15, 2995-3011

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.

Keywords: Chinese Medicine; COVID-19; epidemics; heat; SARS; 中医; æ–°å† è‚ºç‚Ž; æµ è¡Œç—…; 热; é žå…¸åž‹æ€§è‚ºç‚Žï¼ˆSARS） (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:61:y:2024:i:15:p:2995-3011

DOI: 10.1177/00420980221130272

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