Work

Infrastructuring planetary rural geographies: A view from China’s rural construction movement

Year: 2025

Type: editorial

Abstract: This commentary responds to Wang et al.'s (2025) call for planetary rural geographies by attending to the neglected infrastructural dimensions. In so doing, we show how China's rural construction movement demonstrates Wang et al.'s (2025) three geographies of planetary rurality: as spaces of crisis, conflict, and hope. Simultaneously, we address how planetary rural thinking can foreground infrastructural geographies and their destabilization of urban-centered discourses, leading to a reconsideration of rural–urban relationality. We then identify new insights that critical infrastructural studies offer to planetary rural geographies. This includes an emphasis on the material grounds, hidden politics, and non-linear temporal patterns of rural–urban interactions. We conclude by suggesting that a global comparative study of rural construction movements can take the pluriversal planetary rural geographies agenda forward.

Source: Dialogues in Human Geography

DOI: 10.1177/20438206251364983

Authors: Ningning Chen, Lily Kong, Yurui Li

Institutions: Sun Yat-sen University, Singapore Management University, Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences

Language: English

Topic: Rural development and sustainability

Subfield: General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

Field: Agricultural and Biological Sciences

Domain: Life Sciences

SDGs: Sustainable cities and communities, Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Open Access status: green

Funder: National Natural Science Foundation of China