Demystifying the Promise of Sustainability through the China-Pakistan Donkey Trade
How does CPEC as a development project impact the social fabric of Pakistani society?
How does it promise to bring social well-being to the marginalized segments?
And how does it affect rural people’s long-standing tradition of developing personalized relationships with other-than-human communities?
Inspirational Texts
Govindrajan, Radhika. 2018. Animal Intimacies: Interspecies Relatedness in India’s Central Himalayas. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Van Dooren, Thom. 2019. The Wake of Crows: Living and Dying in Shared Worlds. New York: Columbia University Press.
Inspirational Quotes:
Recent scholarly studies supporting the sustainable approach of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) argue that China’s mega-money project spanning more than 100 countries promises to bring sustainability through the rapid completion of infrastructural projects. This chapter focuses on the human-donkey relationship and, through a careful exploration of the lifeworlds of poor donkey keepers in Pakistan, argues that sustainability should be measured by determining the wellbeing of both humans and more-than-humans, and by preserving their knotted relationship that remains critical for these communities. By critically analyzing the donkey trade and slaughter for developing a traditional Chinese medicine, ejioa, this chapter examines the disappearance of donkeys from the local ecology and provides an analytical reflection of the current sustainability framework.
Key Questions
How can sustainability emerge as an inclusive concept to ensure the wellbeing and a safe future for all: humans, donkeys, and the human–donkey relationship?
When infrastructure development emerges as potentially unsustainable, how could the promise of sustainability be achieved?
“the world needs to take profit of the Belt and Road Initiative to help close significant financing gaps for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, especially in the developing world, in particular, the need for about $1 trillion needed for infrastructure investments in developing countries.”