Upcoming Events

Jesse Rodenbiker, Department of Geography, Rutgers University

Ecological States: Conservation Infrastructure and Development on China's Peri-urban Fringe

Counter to the notion that the science of ecology arose from a critical understanding of the effects of modernity, a mechanistic approach to ecology in China has become a means of the formation and expression of state power. The larger architecture of my research illustrates how state power and forms of nature, in this case ecology, are deeply intertwined. In this colloquium talk, I illustrate how ecology becomes embedded within local state formations and socio-environmental governance through three interrelated spatial practices including city-level comprehensive urban-rural planning, peri-urban ecological migration, and the distribution of institutional responsibility for peri-urban conservation site financing, construction, and management. Enacting peri-urban conservation zones through ensembles of spatial practices extends the reach of city-level state power across the peri-urban fringe. As the reach of the local state extends, ecology becomes not only a means through which state power is produced, but a force mediating social relationships. I will discuss how ecology mediates the exercise of power in the built environment and daily life by discussing the spatial politics of valuation and compensation for peri-urban village housing and land as each are unevenly incorporated into urban government-led conservation. Uneven incorporation of rural land and housing shapes social differentiation, as well as how villagers navigate and experience rural-urban transitions. 

Jesse Rodenbiker is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at Rutgers University. He has worked extensively on issues of urban and rural development, sustainability, and environmental governance in China. Recent publications in this vein include, Uneven Incorporation: Volumetric transitions in peri-urban China's conservation zones (2019) and Superscribing Sustainability: The production of China's urbanwaterscapes(2017). He holds a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley.

An informal gathering will take place at Pino's in Highland Park after the talk.

All talks in the Speaker Series take place in Tillett Hall, Room 246, on the Livingston Campus, 54 Joyce Kilmer Ave, unless otherwise noted.