Ecological States: Politics of Science and Nature in Urbanizing China

Jesse Rodenbiker

Open Access Published by Cornell University Press 2023

Ecological States

Politics of Science and Nature in Urbanizing China

Jesse Rodenbiker
Funded by: Luce Foundation
Preface by: Albert L. Park

In the series The Environments of East Asia

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501769023

Overview
Contents

About this book

Ecological States critically examines ecological policies in the People's Republic of China to show how campaigns of scientifically based environmental protection transform nature and society. While many point to China's ecological civilization programs as a new paradigm for global environmental governance, Jesse Rodenbiker argues that ecological redlining extends the reach of the authoritarian state.

Although Chinese urban sustainability initiatives have driven millions of citizens from their land and housing, Rodenbiker shows that these migrants are not passive subjects of state policy. Instead, they creatively navigate resettlement processes in pursuit of their own benefit. However, their resistance is limited by varied forms of state-backed infrastructural violence.

Through extensive fieldwork with scientists, urban planners, and everyday citizens in southwestern China, Ecological States exposes the ways in which the scientific logics and practices fundamental to China's green urbanization have solidified state power and contributed to dispossession and social inequality

With support from the Henry Luce Foundation, our goal is to produce all titles in this series both in Open Access, for reasons of global accessibility and equity, as well as in print editions.

Author / Editor information

Jesse Rodenbiker is Associate Research Scholar at Princeton University with the Center on Contemporary China at the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies and Assistant Teaching Professor at Rutgers University with the Department of Geography.

Reviews

Anna L. Ahlers, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science:

Ecological States is significant, innovative, and groundbreaking. Jesse Rodenbiker combines insightful ethnographic detail with ambitious theorizing and interpretation of science and policy interfaces in the Chinese political system, drawing connections to topics of global relevance.

Emily Yeh, University of Colorado, author of Taming Tibet:

Ecological States masterfully illuminates how ecology has become instrumental to state power and urbanization in China. Jesse Rodenbiker chronicles the counter-conduct of those facing involuntary resettlement, which has been legitimated in the name of aestheticized eco-development. Essential reading for understanding governance through ecological zoning in China and beyond.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Foreword Albert L. Park Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction: Ecological States Open Access Download PDF	1
Part I ECOLOGY AND STATE POWER
1. Making Ecology Developmental Open Access Download PDF	25
2. Botany, Beauty, Purification Open Access Download PDF	54
3. Ecological Territorialization Open Access Download PDF	76
Part II ECOLOGY AND SOCIAL TRAJECTORIES
4. Ecological Migrations, Volumetric Aspirations Open Access Download PDF	103
5. Rural Redux Open Access Download PDF	130
6. Infrastructural Diffusion Open Access Download PDF	160
Epilogue: Global Ecological Futures Open Access Download PDF	186
Appendix: Research Methods Open Access Download PDF	195
Notes Open Access Download PDF	201
References Open Access Download PDF	219
Index Open Access Download PDF	239

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 264
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 2
- Line drawings: 6
- Images: 13
- Other: 13 b&w halftones, 6 b&w line drawings, 2 maps
Keywords: sustainable urbanization in China; urban-rural inequality in China; nature conservation in China; China’s rural transformation; ecological civilizations; environmental governance; ecological policies in China; geography

eBook

Published: June 15, 2023
ISBN: 9781501769023