Andrea Pia’s Cutting the Mass Line examines water supply and increasing scarcity induced by the climate crisis in a rural area of Yunnan, Southwest China. Combining a rich ethnography with theoretical lenses, the book unpicks the complex factors shaping the region’s water politics, from the history of state-building under Mao and contemporary national policies to grassroots resistance movements, writes Tarini Monga.
Cutting the Mass Line: Water, Politics and Climate in Southwest China. Andrea Pia. Hopkins Press. 2024.
In Cutting the Mass Line: Water, Politics and Climate in Southwest China, Andrea Pia presents a nuanced and ethnographically rich account of China’s history and the maintenance of hydraulic infrastructure. The book is set in Huize County, a rural region in Yunnan, following three years of intense drought, highlighting the dynamic interplay between state systems, grassroots interventions and historical legacies. Pia argues that these interactions reveal deeper tensions between centralisation and local autonomy, as well as between technocratic solutions and the lived realities of rural communities. The book delves into questions of the commons and a future of global sustainability politics through various theoretical lenses and ethnographic vignettes. At its core, it demonstrates that water is not merely a resource to be managed but a contested space where politics, ethics and power intersect. Pia makes three key contributions to the rapidly expanding literature on water governance in anthropology.
Lines as modes of thinking
First, the use of “lines” – material, conceptual, ethical and political – is one of the book’s central innovations and allows for an exploration of water as beyond a physical resource. The initial provocation is made by revisiting Mao’s principle of the “mass line” which puts faith in the masses by instructing officials to consult the masses and interpret their will into policy action. This serves as a potent organisational principle to understand collective action in rural China. The reference to “mass line” then probes the historic complexity of agrarian desire for self-governance and shifting notions of justice. The analytic of “lines” is extended to other categories such as lifelines and timelines over the course of the narrative.
The role of oral histories and memory in exploring how regimes of ownership and hydraulic politics are understood is a crucial contribution of the book.
Guided by Ingold’s concept of lines and meshwork, Pia emphasises the non-linearity of social action through this metaphor. He extends this framework by offering an analytical imaginary that captures the complex political and social tensions at play, particularly the thresholds of transformation and collective action within environmental politics. For instance, timelines complicate a linear progression of time and development efforts. Through cracks, turns and flaws of these timelines, we are made to see the life of state water agencies as they contemplate failure. Lifelines appear as another powerful mode of thinking in the book which not only probe the life giving and sustaining capacities of water but also help visualise negotiations in the policy realm between the state and its “endangered citizens” (106). Lifeline initiatives or short-term economic goals and fixes in a time of environmental emergency further layer our understanding of the state apparatus.
Hydraulic politics in contemporary China
Second, the book is deeply rooted in China’s historical trajectory, making important provocations about contemporary demands for self-governance. Pia situates his ethnography within the broader history of state-building and socialist infrastructure, tracing how centralised resource management evolved alongside rapid industrialisation and market reforms. He maps out a critique of the global shift to green economies guided by liberal rationalities and how state agencies come to act as private companies. The text draws attention to moments such as the collectivisation period (1958-1962), when water infrastructure was tightly controlled by the state, and contrasts this with recent trends toward marketisation and private investment in water infrastructure. The role of oral histories and memory in exploring how regimes of ownership and hydraulic politics are understood is a crucial contribution of the book.
The author’s argument contributes to the growing literature on techno-bureaucratic devices (such as water meters, pressure control valves and hiked water bills) as mechanisms of violence fuelled by divestment and neoliberal logics of financing.
The case of the Xiaowa reservoir was especially powerful as an interlocutor recollects farmer mobilisations under Mao’s party motto “man must conquer nature” (55). While the faulty design of the reservoir lead to major flooding, the historic moment continues to symbolise the potential of collective action and water as a symbol of communist solidarity rather than a legal right. On the other hand, other respondents are more critical of nostalgia and the idealism of socialist hydraulics. They recollect Mao’s paradigm to be reckless and based in principles of oversupply that didn’t consider long-term effects on the water grid. This attention to historical detail and orienting the reader with a sense of place highlight the contours of spatiotemporal politics and push for local autonomy in contemporary rural China.
Grassroots strategies of resistance
Finally, perhaps the most compelling is Pia’s focus on grassroots responses of rural communities to state intervention in resource governance. By examining how these communities navigate, resist, and sometimes subvert policies such as water meter installations and fee collections, we see a redefinition of the terms of engagement with top-down policies. We are introduced to activists and strategies of resisting water enclosure through creative modes of disruption. The author’s argument contributes to the growing literature on techno-bureaucratic devices (such as water meters, pressure control valves and hiked water bills) as mechanisms of violence fuelled by divestment and neoliberal logics of financing. This makes a compelling case about ethno-nationalist experiences in the countryside and how visions of nationalistic betterment are in reality deeply classed. The text could have benefitted from a deeper engagement with class as an analytical category to nuance the theoretical positioning of rural China in questions around access. It remains a primarily implicit engagement, emerging through a focus on rural marginalisation, bureaucratic labour and grassroots resistance.
Capturing the complexity of water governance
While the text hinges on numerous theoretical debates and conversations in environmental anthropology today, the multiplicity of lenses occasionally overwhelm the narrative. For example, the invocation of Ingold’s framing of “lines” is rich and productive in its ability to conceptualise the lines of water governance both materially and metaphorically. However, this framework is juxtaposed with other significant theoretical engagements such as Weberian critiques of bureaucracy, Marxist critique of neoliberal commodification and green economy, infrastructure and material studies. While intellectually stimulating, these references result in a theoretical landscape that is expansive but occasionally fragmented. A sharpened focus on one or two central guiding frameworks would not only enhance the coherence of the theoretical narrative but also allow the ethnography to breathe.
That said, Pia’s ambitious approach also has its strengths. It reflects the complexity of the subject matter and demonstrates an awareness of the interdisciplinary nature of water governance. The empirical depth, particularly in understanding the lives of experts and professionals, highlight analytical routes which centre the negotiating process rather than the end goal of a project. This remains a key contribution to understanding hydraulic failure and the governance of resources, offering a nuanced view of how actors navigate tensions between state directives and grassroots realities.
Note: This review gives the views of the author, not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Main image credit: Johanna Siegel on Shutterstock.
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