Ecological States: Politics of Science and Nature in Urbanizing China by Jesse Rodenbiker
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.
Ecological States is published Open-Access. The E-book version is free to download at Cornell University Press. Paperback and Hardcover are available from Cornell University Press (30% discount code: 09BCARD), Amazon, Bookshop, and your local book shop.
Praise for Ecological States
"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." - Emily Yeh, Professor of Geography at University of Colorado, Boulder
"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." - Anna L. Ahlers, Professor of Political Sociology at Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
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.
Ecological States is published Open-Access. The E-book version is free to download at Cornell University Press. Paperback and Hardcover are available from Cornell University Press (30% discount code: 09BCARD), Amazon, Bookshop, and your local book shop.
Praise for Ecological States
"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." - Emily Yeh, Professor of Geography at University of Colorado, Boulder
"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." - Anna L. Ahlers, Professor of Political Sociology at Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
