Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network – Chinese Studies Channel
Host: Yadong Li
Guest: Dr. Jesse Rodenbiker (Assistant Professor of Geography, Rutgers University)
Book: Ecological States: Politics of Science and Nature in Urbanizing China (Cornell UP, 2023)
Date: Oct 24, 2025

This episode delves into Dr. Jesse Rodenbiker's exploration of China's urban ecological transformation. Focusing on the intersections of environmental governance, urbanization, displacement, and state power, the conversation provides an in-depth look at how ecological interventions shape social life and landscapes in contemporary China.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dr. Rodenbiker’s Background and Motivations

• Personal Journey & Lived Experience
  Dr. Rodenbiker discusses how living in China—first in coal-heated Jilin, later in the scenic southwest—sparked his interest in the relationship between environmental change, power, and displacement. Experiences with the Sustainable Cities Initiative exposed him to widespread displacement under “green” urban renewal (03:02–06:37).

• Core Research Questions

  • How did ecology become central to Chinese state power?
  • How is environmental governance tied to social engineering and inequality?
  • How do citizens experience and respond to ecological policymaking?

“Displacement was simply seen as part of greening cities... But at the same time, millions of people were undergoing displacement processes.” – Jesse Rodenbiker (04:11)

2. Fieldwork: Methods, Sites, and Personal Dimensions

• Site Selection
  Focused on Kunming, Chengdu, and Dali to expand research beyond China’s well-studied eastern seaboard cities to the urbanizing southwest (07:33–12:25).

  • Chose sites that represent different urban types (provincial capitals, prefecture, and county-level towns).
  • Linked research focus to where ecological planning policies were being piloted.

• Multi-Method Approach

  • Ethnography: Hundreds of interviews with stakeholders (officials, planners, villagers, migrants).
  • Participatory method: "Photovoice" (villagers document landscape change visually).
  • Historical/archival research.

• Fieldwork with Family
  Did research as a single parent; daughter’s presence both challenged and aided access and rapport-building in villages (20:31–25:19).

“Over time, I started to think of her kind of like my research partner because her presence was shaping the different ways that I would engage with people…” – Jesse Rodenbiker (24:07)

3. Urbanization & Ecological Politics in China

• Urbanization as Central to Environmental Politics (13:32–19:30)
  • China’s rapid urbanization: Over 100 cities with >1 million people; urban population from <20% (1949) to ~65%.
  • Urban-rural coordinated planning and ecological “redlining” (zoning 20–30% of land for ecological protection).
  • Policies justify large-scale territorialization, displacement under the guise of ecological modernization.
  • Urban planners view cities as “concentrated, mature” and villages as “dispersed, not yet matured” (17:10).

“The city is concentrated… but villages, they’re really dispersed… With this form of governance…it’s not only a plan, it’s also a structure...” – Urban planner, quoted by Rodenbiker (17:19)

4. Historical Continuities and Ruptures

• From Mao to Xi

  • Maoist campaigns focused on technical triumph over nature, political performance (ex: “Fill in the Lake Brigade” in Lake Dian).
  • Xi era: Technocratic, scientific optimization (“ecological civilization”) is less overtly political, more about technoscientific control and aesthetic transformation (26:12–35:45).

• Eco-Developmental Logic

  • State interventions aim at “socio-natural optimization” – create ecological equilibrium, modernize society, enhance landscape aesthetics.
  • Artificial features (e.g., Asia’s largest man-made waterfall in Kunming) as emblems of these eco-developmental ambitions.

“Xi’s vision is one of technoscientific optimization... If you apply the proper scientific and planning interventions, then you will get the desired sociospatial output.” – Jesse Rodenbiker (33:55)

5. Ecological Territorialization & Peri-Urban Migration

• Definition & Consequences
  Ecological territorialization: Techniques (planning, redlining) by which municipal governments gain control of rural land, dislocating populations for “eco-migration” and resettlement (36:57–40:43).

  • 20% (now 30%) of China’s land is redlined for conservation, triggering massive rural resettlement.

• Uneven Outcomes: Accumulation vs. Dispossession (40:43–48:48)

  • Some villagers gain wealth and multiple apartments (“accumulation through displacement”), while others are left in “high-rise poverty” or so-called “refugee districts.”
  • Pre-existing social inequalities are amplified; those with larger assets or better connections navigate compensation more successfully.
  • Strategies of resistance include protest and creative use of compensation, showing agency despite structural coercion.

“Villagers are essentially utilizing state assets in ways that are unintended by state planners… This is a pushback against that mechanistic approach to governance.” – Jesse Rodenbiker (43:18)

6. Infrastructure as a Tool of Governance

• Intentional Disrepair & Diffuse Power (49:42–53:35)
  • Not just new infrastructure but removal and disrepair (e.g., partial demolition, cutting water/power) are used to break collective resistance and encourage resettlement.
  • “Infrastructural diffusion” weakens solidarity and fosters compliance by making village life untenable.

“Power can be constituted in diffuse ways through infrastructural disrepair and intentional infrastructural removal... Over time, villagers grew tired of living in a landscape of detritus, their solidarity weakened.” – Jesse Rodenbiker (51:12)

7. Global Perspectives and Comparative Relevance

• Ecological State Formation Beyond China (54:26–61:11)
  • Argues for situating China's environmental governance in global frameworks; ecological state formation is not unique to China.
  • China’s ecological strategies (e.g., conservation redlining) now models for other countries, especially in the Global South.
  • Rodenbiker’s current research examines “green soft power,” China’s impact on global environmental policy (COP15), BRI impacts on Africa, and the “new red scare” in US land ownership debates.

“The book isn’t portraying some kind of top-down authoritarian state... but rather a state that comes into being through reasoned forms of ecological knowledge production, struggles over resources, and everyday negotiations.” – Jesse Rodenbiker (55:21)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the duality of ecological progress and social cost:
  “China's green urbanization drive, which is really the largest on earth, is displacing millions of people and deepening social inequality within that process.” (03:15)

• On the changing meanings of ‘ecological civilization’:
  “Ecological civilization merged organically from Chinese intellectuals across a range of different disciplines... grappling with how we square ecological thought with socialist thought at a time when China seemed to be transitioning out of socialism.” (29:29)

• On the emotional weight of displacement:
  “Some people would burst into tears when they would talk about and think about their old houses in the village…how much freedom they had relative to what they’re now experiencing living in the high rise.” (47:19)

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Start | End | |-----------------------------------------------------|----------|----------| | Introduction and Author’s Background | 03:02 | 06:37 | | Fieldwork Methods and Rationale | 07:33 | 12:25 | | Urbanization and Ecological Politics | 13:32 | 19:30 | | Challenges and Multi-Sited Fieldwork | 20:31 | 25:19 | | Maoist vs. Xi Era Ecological Governance | 26:12 | 35:45 | | Ecological Territorialization and Displacement | 36:57 | 40:43 | | Unevenness in Resettlement Outcomes | 41:18 | 48:48 | | Infrastructure as Instrument of Power | 49:42 | 53:35 | | Global Contexts and Comparative Lens | 54:26 | 61:11 |

Final Thoughts

Dr. Rodenbiker’s Ecological States offers a nuanced, on-the-ground view of how “greening” efforts in China are deeply intertwined with state power, social inequality, and global environmental visions. The episode highlights the human stakes of these transformations and encourages comparative, transnational approaches to state-led environmental intervention.

The book is available for free via open access at Cornell University Press. For more, visit Dr. Rodenbiker’s research website or contact him directly (see podcast blog for details).