Presentation short abstract

Grounded in ethnographic fieldwork and guided by an agroecological lens, this contribution explores neo-rural migration in Dali, Yunnan, focusing on how neo-rural farmers develop agroecological practices and reshape local socio-environmental relations.

Presentation long abstract

In a time of accelerating socio-ecological transformation, when the historical rural–urban dichotomy is increasingly inadequate for capturing emerging spatial and social configurations, and when the unsustainability of dominant agrifood regimes becomes ever more evident, neorurality is gaining significance as a site of counter-narratives, alternative possibilities and experimental practices. Motivated by disillusionment with urban life and by aspirations to rebuild relationships with nature, land and food self-provisioning, China’s neo-rural migrants challenge linear models of development that cast “rural” and “urban” as oppositional stages. Instead, they actively remake socio-natural relations through syncretic and ecologically attuned agricultural practices enacted as part of their ongoing processes of “repeasantization”, bringing with them diverse forms of cultural capital, professional expertise and urban-derived resources that contribute to reshaping local agrarian landscapes.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the Dali area of Yunnan Province and complemented by digital ethnography, this contribution has a twofold aim. First, it examines the socio-ecological dynamics generated by emergent forms of ecological agriculture through a holistic framework that integrates environmental and social dimensions of sustainability, showing how neo-rural practices both respond to and reshape local ecologies, agrarian livelihoods and value systems. Second, it explores how the “agroecological paradigm” is enacted within the Chinese context, highlighting the multiple factors that shape the emergence and understanding of this paradigm in the contemporary national setting.

Presentation short abstract

By investigating Zhiziluo Village's traumatic rupture in history, this paper reveals how historical disconnection and memory politics shape the becoming of place, arguing for the integration of temporality in relational geography.

Presentation long abstract

This paper identifies and addresses a synchronic preference in relational geography, which has led to the under-theorisation of temporality in the becoming of place. Through a diachronic investigation of Zhiziluo Village in Nujiang, Yunnan, a remote mountainous village that has experienced the full cycle of connection, disconnection, and reconnection, this paper analyses how a traumatic rupture – an administrative relocation justified by a landslide that never occurred – and the subsequent enduring politics of memory have shaped its identity and trajectory. Developing three scenarios, namely the occurrence of rupture, struggle for memory, and conflict around tourism development, this paper makes three theoretical contributions: it establishes disconnection as a constitutive force, co-equal with connection; reveals memory politics as a central mechanism through which the past shapes the present; and, ultimately, proposes a fundamental revision of relational geography to incorporate temporality by accounting for historical cycles of (dis)connection and the struggles over memory.

Presentation short abstract

Based on ethnography in northwest Yunnan, this paper shows how China’s ecological civilization is enacted through monkey conservation. Feeding, patrols, and landscape work link national goals with local livelihoods and tourism, while monkeys’ behavior shapes outcomes, revealing multispecies agency.

Presentation long abstract

China’s ecological transformation, framed through the project of “ecological civilization,” has reconfigured environments through a governance model that is state-led yet intertwined with market mechanisms and development goals. While its ideological and institutional dimensions are increasingly recognized, its material enactments and multispecies dynamics remain underexamined within political ecology. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in northwest Yunnan on Yunnan snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus bieti) conservation, this paper analyzes how socio-natures are produced through the convergence of state power, local labor, tourism infrastructures, and nonhuman agency.

The study traces how conservation practices, from habituation and food provisioning to daily patrol routines and viewing sites construction, translate the broad mandate of ecological civilization into situated forms of environmental management. These interventions reorganize village labor and seasonal rhythms, embed national ecological priorities into everyday practices, and align conservation with an expanding tourism economy. In doing so, they generate distinct configurations of authority, value, and spatial control.

In parallel, the monkeys shape conservation outcomes: their shifting home ranges, differential responses to feeding, and variable visibility to tourists continually require adjustments in management strategies and local labor. Interactions between local communities and monkey groups reveal ongoing negotiations over habitat, mobility, and resource access. Rather than passive recipients of protection, the monkeys influence the temporalities, logistical decisions, and infrastructures through which interventions operate.

By situating these dynamics within broader debates on China’s socioecological transformation, the paper shows how multispecies co-production shapes conservation on the ground and offers a clear analytical entry point for political ecology beyond neoliberal contexts.

Presentation short abstract

This study proposes a nuanced critique of the authoritarian responsiveness theory by adopting a political ecology perspective on a a contested molybdenum-copper plant project in Shifang city, which highlights how China’s state capitalism shapes local governments’ response to environmental activism.

Presentation long abstract

Under state capitalism, government-industry relations in China are widely recognized as being extremely tight and complex. However, existing research on government responsiveness to environmental protests has largely overlooked the influence of business interests in shaping government decisions regarding targeted projects. This study proposes a nuanced critique of the authoritarian responsiveness theory through an in-depth analysis of a notable but understudied case: the multi-million-dollar molybdenum-copper plant project promoted by the government of Shifang city in Sichuan Province in the early 2010s despite significant popular mobilization, and yet was later quietly abandoned. While a superficial appraisal of this case might attribute the government decision to its responsiveness to the protests, our longitudinal analysis demonstrates that it resulted from a shift in the local government’s perception of its business interests, which was driven by changes in the political relations surrounding the companies involved in the project. Using process-tracing methodology and systematic triangulation of diverse secondary and primary sources, we first show how the government’s perception of its business interests evolved in response to changing politico-business dynamics. Second, we show and explain why this shift in interests outweighed the impact of popular mobilization in influencing the decision to pursue and later abandon the project. Our findings contribute to the development of theories on authoritarian responsiveness by bringing a political ecology perspective highlighting how China’s state capitalism shapes the ways in which its local governments respond to environmental activism surrounding industrial projects.

Presentation long abstract

Recent years have witnessed the burgeoning of waste geography as a distinctive and cutting-edge area of inquiry within the broader field of geography. However, a conspicuous lacuna remains regarding the study of low-value waste streams, such as municipal solid waste (MSW). This research addresses the structural dilemmas inherent in the spatial governance of MSW in major Chinese metropolises. Specifically, it interrogates the spatial coordination paradox arising from inconsistencies between source separation initiatives and end-of-life treatment capacities. The overcapacity of waste incineration facilities, in particular, impedes the effective implementation of upstream waste sorting programs. Departing from the prevailing emphasis on techno-managerial solutions, this project prioritizes spatial governance perspectives. Through a comparative case study analysis of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Beijing, it investigates the underlying mechanisms and resultant effects of these spatial governance challenges. This research contributes to a significant theoretical advancement by transcending the limitations of a purely engineering-driven paradigm and pioneering a novel approach to waste geography within the Chinese context. By addressing the existing research gap concerning low-value waste, it offers a foundational theoretical basis for constructing high-quality, inclusive zero-waste cities and fostering ecological civilization.

Presentation short abstract

This paper analyzes the Han-to-Wei Water Transfer Project via an infrastructure politics framework. It reveals how reconfiguration enhances urban resilience and industrial growth but creates adaptive privilege, marginalizing upstream rural communities through digital exclusion and unequal costs.

Presentation long abstract

The global climate crisis has transformed infrastructure into a strategic tool for urban adaptation, yet the political implications of such technical interventions remain under-examined. This study investigates the Han-to-Wei Water Transfer Project (HWWTP) in China, utilizing an infrastructure-space politics framework to analyze how water reconfiguration reshapes regional power dynamics. Through mixed methods—including policy analysis, semi-structured interviews, and participatory observation—the research reveals that while the project significantly enhances Xi'an’s water security and facilitates a shift toward high-tech low-carbon industries, it generates profound adaptive privilege. The study identifies a unique substitutional adaptation strategy where local governments optimize water efficiency to meet top-down mandates, prioritizing urban industrial growth while upstream areas function as sacrifice zones facing ecological degradation. Furthermore, the deployment of digital water governance and smart metering, while framed as efficient, systematically marginalizes traditional rural knowledge and reinforces power asymmetries through a triple bind of procedural, distributional, and recognition injustice. Consequently, upstream communities bear disproportionate ecological costs and livelihood losses without substantive decision-making power. The paper concludes that technocratic climate solutions often mask deep socio-spatial inequalities, advocating for governance reforms that integrate recognition justice and meaningful cross-regional consultation into infrastructure planning.

Presentation short abstract

Using the idea of capacity-building praxis, the paper shows how co-learning and participatory training create micro-political openings in state-led urban nature governance, reshaping relations, elevating community knowledge, and enabling more inclusive neighbourhood-level stewardship.

Presentation long abstract

Urban political ecology has increasingly turned toward praxis, yet we know little about how such practice-oriented engagements unfold in settings where ecological governance is strongly state-led and technocratic. This paper develops the concept of capacity-building praxis to examine how collaborative training, co-learning, and participatory workshops can operate as political interventions within emerging fields of urban nature governance. Drawing on qualitative research conducted across several cities, the study analyses interactions among governmental officials, community stewards, NGOs, academics, and early-career practitioners involved in shared learning on neighbourhood-level green infrastructure, community gardens, and environmental stewardship. The findings show how capacity-building processes can reconfigure relationships among actors, enhance interpretive authority for community knowledge, and subtly challenge dominant narratives that shape urban environmental policy. Three contributions are offered. First, capacity building is reframed as institutional praxis, shifting the focus from skill transfer to reconfigurations of collaboration, understanding, and decision-making. Second, the paper demonstrates how modest co-learning environments can create micro-political openings within centralised governance regimes, enabling participants to articulate alternative socio-ecological imaginaries of stewardship and multifunctional urban nature. Third, it identifies the structural frictions, including administrative path dependencies, performance-led evaluation cultures, and asymmetries between state and civic actors, that shape the durability of such openings. By conceptualising capacity building as a form of praxis, the paper broadens the repertoire of engaged urban political ecology and illustrates how more inclusive and resilient forms of urban nature governance can be cultivated within and across rapidly urbanising contexts.

Presentation short abstract

In Southeast Asia, hydropower projects link clean energy to China's expansion. Grassroots activists form alliances to seek accountability for social/ecological impacts while exploring Chinese development as an alternative. How are the Mekong and activism transformed by China's climate solutions?

Presentation long abstract

Electricity is intricately intertwined with the politics of the Anthropocene, serving as both the culmination of ongoing ecological infrastructuralisation and a potential transformative force through renewables. This shift marks a departure from the climate-altering impact of fossil fuels, making clean electricity a focal point in global climate activism. The crucial questions now revolve around the nature and purpose of this electricity.

In Southeast Asia, the rise of clean energy is closely tied to China’s expansionist pursuits, evident in mega-projects like the interconnected hydropower dams along the Mekong River. Grassroots and indigenous activists in the region grapple with forging international alliances to hold China-backed corporations and local governments accountable for the social and ecological consequences of carbon-neutral growth. Simultaneously, they explore Chinese-led development as a postcolonial alternative to the prevailing American world order.

By analysing a series of oral history interviews collected with key stakeholders in the SEA hydropower sector (indigenous and climate activists, conservationists, NGO practitioners, Chinese hydro engineers and scientists), this paper investigates China-led decarbonisation from an emic perspective. It asks: On what varying intellectual, economic, and ethical grounds are current Chinese hydropower projects in SEA pursued and/or fought against? Whose future does get counted in, and whose present gets counted out, by Chinese decarbonising efforts? What is made of SEA’s riverine communities as such efforts displace and dispossess residents to generate green energy and new economic opportunities? What is made of a river once it is viewed as a climate solution?

Presentation short abstract

As engagement with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has expanded, environmental standards have been widely perceived as a barrier to participation, particularly for wealthier states. Our analyses illustrate how such states have engaged more deeply following China’s ‘Green BRI’ shift in 2017.

Presentation long abstract

As engagement with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has expanded globally, concerns about environmental standards have been widely perceived as a barrier to participation for states with more stringent environmental policies (Coenen et al., 2021). In line with political ecology approaches, we interpret this dynamic not simply as a matter of preference, but as rooted in unequal power and uneven capacities to reject environmentally risky infrastructure – i.e., wealthier states can more easily forgo BRI opportunities on environmental grounds. Since 2017, China has articulated a ‘Green BRI’ strategy that promotes a supposedly greener approach to infrastructure projects, potentially reducing the barrier for more environmentally stringent host states. Building on debates over whether the Green BRI represents a substantive shift or is merely greenwashing, this paper empirically examines whether the strategy has reshaped global engagement patterns, particularly by deepening participation among environmentally stringent host states. Leveraging a novel dataset on host states’ BRI engagement, we analyse the relationship between national environmental standards and BRI engagement before and after 2017. Our findings show that, post-2017, states with more stringent environmental standards engage more deeply, indicating successful reduction of this barrier. Case studies of states that increased engagement after 2017 further illustrate how environmental standards and the Green BRI shift have shaped engagement. Our systematic evaluation demonstrates that the Green BRI is shaped by varying power relations with host states, providing new insights into its implications for global environmental governance and the future trajectory of the initiative.

Presentation short abstract

This paper discusses the anticipatory (geo)-politics of the planned 180-kilometer, US$1.7 billion, Chinese funded, Funan-Techo Canal (FTC) that the government of Cambodia has endeavoured to excavate between Phnom Penh, and the Gulf of Thailand.

Presentation long abstract

In this paper, we engage with the 180-kilometer, US$1.7 billion, Chinese funded, Funan-Techo Canal (FTC) that the government of Cambodia has endeavoured to excavate between Phnom Penh, and the Gulf of Thailand. We discuss the anticipatory (geo)-politics this project that has yet to come has put in motion, hence contributing to a body of literature that interrogates how infrastructure “come to matter before they become ‘matter’”. International media coverage has portrayed the FTC as a materialization of China’s geopolitical ambitions in South-East Asia. Lack of information regarding the design of the FTC and contradictory announcements about its purpose spurred American and Vietnamese anxieties that the canal be used for logistical support to an existing joint Cambodia-China naval base in the Gulf of Thailand, and disrupt water movement in the transboundary Mekong delta floodplains, negatively impacting an agriculture and aquaculture sector that is of prime importance to Vietnam. But the FTC is not only about geo(political) anticipation, it is also mobilized for the purpose of regime strengthening in Cambodia and to both spur and remedy a deep seated ‘sovereign anxiety’ over perceived threats over Cambodia’s autonomy, territorial integrity and collective identity. That the canal is linked to patriotism has tangible consequences: It carries a threatening undertone that constrains how people can express and act on their concerns and anxieties, and spurs speculative (non)economies whereby many livelihood activities are suspended and land transactions multiply, in a context of general distrust over compensations promises informed by earlier lived experiences or stories heard.

Presentation short abstract

How does China address mitigation dealing with eco-based solutions and reducing CO2 footprint? I aim to discuss how China is implementing climate mitigation comparing to Brazil. Methodology combines primary/secondary data, interviews (public/private entities) and bibliographic/documentary resources.

Presentation long abstract

China is a key player in the global energy transition and climate mitigation strategies, so its trajectory can influence the political, economic and ecological paths of other countries, such as Brazil. My central questions are: a) How are energy transition and climate mitigation projects guided, both within China and globally? b) How does the Chinese state govern the issue of “community-supported ecosystem-based climate mitigation solutions”? c) How does China address the need to reduce CO² emissions in its spatial circuits of production, especially in agrarian contexts? In this paper, I aim to discuss how China has been addressing changes in land use by implementing climate mitigation solutions, such as renewable energy plants (especially solar plants) and community-based agroecological practices. The aim is to contribute to public policy proposals for climate mitigation that identify possible paths for South-South integration, particularly between China and Brazil, in addition to expanding scientific and socio-ecological understanding. The research methodology combines primary and secondary data, through interviews with representatives of intergovernmental bodies, state institutions, and public and private companies in the renewable energy sector (especially solar), representatives of rural communities with expertise in agroecological practices, among other institutions involved in applied research on energy transition, and representatives of civil society and grassroots movements. At the same time, secondary data are collected through bibliographic and documentary research from various sources, including academic sources, the press, and reports.

Presentation short abstract

This presentation examines climate imaginaries of Chinese scientists through 44 surveys and 17 interviews. We identify a hegemonic Carbon Neutrality Imaginary emphasising techno-market solutions, complemented by Harmony and Human Well-Being Elemental Imaginaries providing cultural context.

Presentation long abstract

Scientists in China approach climate futures with an optimistic focus on carbon neutrality and a strong belief in technology and market mechanisms. While China’s role in global climate governance is significant and heavily influenced by scientists, the normative assumptions and perceptions of Chinese scientists remain underexplored. To address this gap, we examine climate imaginaries reproduced by Chinese scientists and ask: What climate imaginaries are held by climate and environmental scientists in China? Climate imaginaries are collectively held visions of desirable futures that reveal the values and problematisations shaping climate knowledge production. Drawing on qualitative content analysis of 44 survey responses and 17 interviews with scientists from elite Chinese universities, we identify one hegemonic Carbon Neutrality Imaginary, which problematizes emissions and favours techno-market solutions. The Carbon Neutrality Imaginary is complemented by the Harmony and the Human Well-Being Elemental Imaginaries, which offer the ideological framework and represent the cultural context. While we suggest an interconnected perspective on the imaginaries based on policy developments, the hegemony of the Carbon Neutrality Imaginary indicates the importance of China’s carbon neutrality pledge over other policy discourses, such as the ecological civilisation or harmonious society. These imaginaries are accompanied by widespread confidence in China's capacity to address climate change through state-led technological and market innovations. However, this optimism risks naturalising market-based governance rationalities while foreclosing alternative socio-ecological pathways, warranting critical scrutiny of how scientists' normative assumptions shape and constrain climate futures.

Presentation short abstract

This contribution investigates the disciplinary potential of environmental sociology, showing how researchers mobilise Fei Xiaotong’s legacy to legitimize the discipline and reconfigure perspectives on local-socio environmental inquiry.

Presentation long abstract

China’s rapidly evolving environmental landscape, shaped by global ambitions and domestic ecological pressures, demands analytical approaches capable of integrating politics, ecological values, and questions of environmental justice. Environmental Sociology is a particularly promising field to address such complexities as it examines how environmental ideologies, governance practices, and social actors interact and how different stakeholders negotiate the state’s environmental visions.

Acknowledging that state-promoted discourse remains a crucial terrain that scholars must navigate analytically, the presentation traces the intellectual and institutional conditions that enabled the emergence of environmental sociology in China, showing how works produced within its domain, while engaging with the official narrative, manage to find space to address locally situated ecological issues. Within this field, the legacy of Professor Fei Xiaotong has played a fundamental role, providing contemporary scholars with a culturally resonant standard for examining human–environment relations. Fei’s research on development and environmental protection, frontier governance, pastoral resource management and local ecological knowledge make his empirically rooted insights particularly valuable and strategically relevant today. Fei’s work, in this sense, becomes a resource through which environmental sociologists can navigate ideological pressures, strengthen disciplinary identity, and address emergent environmental challenges through locally informed and culture-sensitive inqury.

By analysing selected recent cases in which environmental sociologists mobilize Fei’s inheritance, the presentation demonstrates how scholars legitimize their research and generate innovative readings of socio-nature relations, governance dynamics, and ecological justice. It further illustrates how, in certain instances, the prioritization of environmental protection has opened spaces for critical reflection.