The making of a globally-recognised wine region: A case study of Ningxia, China : A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Lincoln University

Abstract

Recent theorising about place-making – a key element of regional development and a core theoretical construct in the field of human geography – emphasises the need for researchers to adopt a relational perspective and a naturalistic methodology to understand how, through action and interactions, people create new economic spaces. Building on this literature, this study examines the implication of the commodification of place based on the global countryside and rural culture economy in the context of a wine region in China. The study interprets how local, regional and national actors and agencies in China are working in concert to create a globally-recognised wine region. The study’s location is Ningxia – a rural area with established vineyards and boutique winery clusters. The place-making process involves the local implementation of central government policies and initiatives designed to raise the region’s international profile as a place of high quality wine production and associated wine tourism opportunities for visitors. Throughout the process of commodifying place, this wine region is marked by evidence of global connectivity and flows but, at the same time, this study reveals that these global forces intersect with, and are modified by, local contingencies and specificities including political, economic, physical, cultural and technological elements. The political influences are mainly framed around the regional government and the government authority, the Administration of Development of Grape Industry of Ningxia (ADGIN), as well as regional policies and regulations from the central Chinese government. Economic influences are primarily recognised through financial transactions and capital investment, and marketing activities. The physical characteristics of the location are fundamental to any wine industry and, in this context, have been largely explained in terms of the physical elements of terroir, a French term, further reflecting the influence of the global in the local. Local cultural influences are manifest in the interpretation of the concept of terroir through a traditional Chinese culture and philosophy lens, so that the physical elements of terroir are influenced by local cultural elements. The technological forces discussed mainly relate to the adoption, at a local level, of technological knowledge and equipment in grape growing and wine production. Thus, global forces are interwoven with the local development of the wine industry, through industrial (capital investment), technical and cultural attributes, and new social relationships associated with wine originating beyond the regional level influence the development of a collective regional body. This study contributes to the conceptualisation of a relational sense of place in a particular Chinese wine region and the examination of the process of making a wine region by discussing the construction of a wine region from the perspective of key supply-side stakeholders; by understanding the role of Chinese political and cultural values in making a wine region; and by addressing the interaction of local and global forces in the locality. This study also contributes to the creation or interpretation of local terroir from local-global nexus by investigating a wine region with its specific features in the Chinese context. Finally, his study contributes to providing a reflection of the fact that the global-local nexus means that the emergence of a wine region is not uniform and that global factors and local/regional factors are manifest in different ways. These global-relational perspectives provide insights into how the Ningxia wine region can be perceived as a “newly differentiated global countryside”, being transformed by the interaction of global forces with extant local elements.