The Oslo-Zhejiang Project: Humanistic Studies of Environment and Climate Change in China:

Akademisk samarbeid med Kina er viktigere enn noensinne. I en tid med store geopolitiske spenninger og eskalerende klima- og miljøkrise er utveksling av studenter mellom Norge og Kina, og samarbeid mellom norske og kinesiske forskere, en av de måtene hvorpå vi sikrer dialog samt mer og bedre kunnskap på tvers av politiske konfliktgrenser. Både Kina og Norge har behov for å utdanne flere med kompetanse til å forstå de menneskelige og sosiale aspekter av klimaendringer og miljøødeleggelser. Oslo-Zhejiang prosjektet har med basis i to forskningsprosjekter støttet av Norges Forskningsrådet arbeidet for å utdanne flere norske og kinesiske kandidater med kompetanse til å forstå de menneskelige og sosiale konsekvensene av globale klimaendringer og lokale miljø-ødeleggelser – spesielt i en tverrfaglig kontekst. Prosjektet har hatt som sitt viktigste mål å tilby undervisning i henholdsvis Norge og Kina som er vesentlig annerledes enn det studentene kjenner i forveien fra sine respektive studier. I Kina har forskerne ved Universitetet i Oslo (UiO) og Zhejiang Universitet (ZJU) organisert praksisorientert undervisning for norske studenter. Norske studenter blir fult integrert i det kinesiske studiemiljøet på master-nivå innen faget antropologi ved ZJU. De og får en unik mulighet for å lage antropologisk feltarbeid på kinesisk innen tema klima og miljø, i grupper med kinesiske studenter og under veiledning av våre samarbeidspartnere. Dette er en studiemulighet for norske kinesisk-studenter som er enestående også i europeisk kontekst. I Oslo får kinesiske master- og phd-studenter en tverrfaglig og metodologisk utfordrende utdanning som omfatter undersøkelser og diskusjoner av klima og miljø, sett i kontekst også av kinesisk samfunn og politikk. De gjøres kjent med metodisk og teoretiske tilganger som er annerledes enn dem de er kjent med fra studiene i Kina, og de samarbeider med norske studenter på vårt masterprogram. Etter prosjektets avslutning planlegges det for videre langsiktig samarbeid basert på erfaringene.

The Oslo-Zhejiang project is based in a long-established collaboration between researchers from University of Oslo (UiO) and Zhejiang University (ZJU). Scholars come from academic disciplines mainly within the humanistic and social sciences, including China studies. The main outcome of the project has been the establishment of structured and research-based student exchange at the MA- and Ph.D levels. MA-students from China Studies at UiO (studying Chinese language, society, culture and politics) get a unique opportunity to immerse in Chinese classes in anthropology at ZJU, focusing on the methodology of doing fieldwork related to topics of climate and environment in the Chinese society. MA and Ph.D level students from different academic disciplines at ZJU get an equally unique opportunity to study climate and environment from interdisciplinary perspectives, especially, from the humanities and social sciences. This kind of interdisciplinarity is still rare in Chinese academia. Students from China have come from study programs in fields ranging from anthropology, tourist studies, philosophy, energy, engineering, etc. and all have joined Norwegian students in studying climate and environment from interdisciplinary perspectives and as seen, especially, in the context of China. The project had two successful years of student exchange before Covid 19 closed most doors for exchange. Already before that time, it had turned out to be easier to recruit Chinese students for the program than Norwegian students, and it was therefore very unfortunate that the year when we had just recruited a larger number (5) Norwegian students to join, Covid 19 set in and we had to cancel all trips. The researchers/teachers have stayed in contact with several of the Chinese graduates, most of whom have also later found jobs or research positions in China where their experiences from the Norwegian study were clearly relevant. One of the students from China received a 4-year Norwegian Ph.D. scholarship after her participation in the exchange program. In the course of the project, an additional number of younger scholars at both Zhejiang and Oslo University have joined the collaboration, and new research collaboration has developed, for instance in the field of gender studies. This was an unexpected but very positive outcome of the project. The partners at both universities now look for possibilities to continue the exchange of students into each other’s study programs, without the previous external funding. In this process, the universities will need to investigate how to best develop a MoU that will ensure that Chinese students are exempt from the new Norwegian tuition fee. Zhejiang University will from 2023 open for invitations to scholars and students connected to the Oslo-Zhejiang Project so we can restart visits and exchange.

The Oslo-Zhejiang Environmental Humanities Project has its basis in the ongoing interdisciplinary research project "Airborne: Pollution, Climate Change and Visions of Sustainability in China". Airborne studies how policy, science, media and population interact in the face of air pollution in China. It engages scholars from the disciplines of China studies/sinology, anthropology, media science, atmospheric chemistry and political science. The new Oslo-Zhejiang Project will expand both the topic of enquiries in Airborne and the forms of collaboration. The main aim is to strengthen post-graduate Norwegian and Chinese students’ competence in the field of environment and climate change as seen from a humanities and social science perspective. Concretely, the project will ensure that researchers in the Airborne project, who already cooperate across disciplines and national borders, expand their collaboration to include joint teaching and supervision. Every year selected Norwegian students from China studies in the University of Oslo will be offered the unique possibility to study environmental issues from a humanistic and social science perspective together with Chinese students, in the Chinese language, at the School of Public Management, Zhejiang University. Chinese students, at the same time, will be offered the possibility of studying, in English, social science and humanistic subjects related to environment and climate change during one semester’s stay at the University of Oslo. In this way students from both China and Norway will be included into international top-level research in a field of particular global urgency, and they will strengthen their own competence in the field. Furthermore, the project will increase the exchange of academic staff between China and Norway, and develop long-term administrative structures for enhancing from below existing top-down institutional partnership.