Jounal papers by June Wang
Urban Geography, 2024
This paper delves into the evolving governance dynamics of urban villages in China through a case... more This paper delves into the evolving governance dynamics of urban villages in China through a case study of the heritage-rich Nantou urban village in Shenzhen. Drawing on the Rancierian politics of aesthetics, the study examines the government's repositioning of urban villages as cultural and aesthetic assets. The research highlights the state's emerging approach to urban village redevelopment which combines aesthetics regime and cultural governance. The intricate interplay between consensus construction and dissensus destruction reveals the fluid and porous boundaries between policing and politicization. The findings contribute to a more dynamic approach to analyzing urban village governance in China, expanding the frameworks for understanding the diverse possibilities inherent in urban redevelopment.
Dialogue in Urban Research, 2024
By deconstructing the human-machine interface across China's economic history, this commentary on... more By deconstructing the human-machine interface across China's economic history, this commentary on Luger's and Schwarze's paper highlights the critical need to explore gender dynamics in post-industrial cities through the human-machine interface. We suggest two new concepts, subjectivity and deep interface, which may offer a way forwards for us to move deeper into post-industrial cities for a more intricate understanding of the enduring inequalities shaping these urban landscapes.
Built Heritage, 2024
In the built heritage studies, the intricate web of social and selective processes that define he... more In the built heritage studies, the intricate web of social and selective processes that define heritage is evident. These processes are, in many cases, intertwined with the notion of scale, examplified through the production of heritage sites at the local, national, and transnational scales. While heritage and geography scholars have articulated the role played by scale in heritage-making and argue against a rigid, fixed, and hierarchical understanding of scale, they highlight the constant reproduction of scale. There is, so far, limited explanation of how the perception of scale gets reproduced and how crucial actors manipulate scalar power and resources for heritage making and the reproduction of scale. To fill this gap, this paper delves into mainland China’s heritage-making, using the southern Anhui historical villages as an example. Based on intensive 5-month field research, this paper has three findings: 1) The nomination process for a World Heritage Site is notably influenced by politics and selectivity; 2) Diverse stakeholders are pivotal in shaping heritage narratives; 3) Individual contributions to heritage creation directly interact with, and subsequently reshape, ‘scale’, an entity that is simultaneously discursive and tangible. By integrating the notion of ‘scale’ into heritage discussions, we illuminate two concurrent processes: creating hierarchies through rule assimilation by interpreting the UNESCO standard internally and evolving socio-spatial dynamics via the manifestation of individual agency with resource manipulation, scale jumping, and reproduction of scale. This approach aligns with the material orientation in human geography and repositions ‘scale’. Here, it’s not just an epistemological framework but also a tangible force that steers individual perceptions and actions and yields measurable material impacts.
ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF GEOGRAPHERS, 2024
This article attempts to further develop the positionality of place through aggregated effects of... more This article attempts to further develop the positionality of place through aggregated effects of vision construction by different positioned actants. We attempt to integrate two concepts: the feminist positionality that stresses the subjects' situatedness in networks and their relational power of vision constructions in host places and the networking behavior of brokers with their exclusive connections to small world clusters, as argued by international relations network analysis. Our attempts at the bodily level of situated and subjective vision construction aim to address two challenges: first, how to address the entanglement of geopolitics and biopolitics, and second, how do encounters account for the power of a place premised on its areal resources through the behavior of brokers. The institutionalization of special economic zone development in Cambodia, from the introduction of new norms to law-making and planning, is chosen as a case for its dynamic process.
Sociology Compass, 2024
Digital platform labor and its complex relationship with capital have stirred scholarly inquiry, ... more Digital platform labor and its complex relationship with capital have stirred scholarly inquiry, calling for a systemic review that bridges foundational theories and various currents of development. In this review, we revisit Marxist and autonomist Marxist theses on the changing nature of work in the platform economy. Following that, we review two major strands of studies on the organization of production at the macro level and labour control at the micro level, which have revealed variegated types of workplace fissuring and different techniques of algorithmic control over bodies. However, we argue that the path forward must transcend these boundaries. We call for a revival of the ‘social factory’ thesis to rekindle ‘networking’ as a way of understanding labor-capital relations on digital platforms. Our premise is that capital and labor mutually constitute the platform economy through their agency of networking the internet and ‘outernet’. We outline four key directions for future research based on this premise: networking with public elements, networking with market-driven elements, networking for financialization in the digital landscape, and networking for resistance. By reinvigorating the social factory approach, we aim to enrich scholarly understandings of labor-capital relations in the platform economy by articulating digital labor in a wider web of sociocultural, technical, political and economic relationships extending beyond and transcending the internet.
Cities, 2023
Drawing upon recent post-political critiques on ineffective participation and urban planning, thi... more Drawing upon recent post-political critiques on ineffective participation and urban planning, this paper reflects on the challenges facing participatory and collaborative planning in China’s latest neighborhood regeneration practices. In 2017, Guangzhou launched a new micro-scale neighborhood regeneration program that shifted the discursive emphasis on participatory planning while China strives to create a new national image of a “people’s city”. This paper critically examines the implementation of old community renovation policies in 32 Chinese provinces and 776 neighborhood regeneration projects in Guangzhou. By examining the objectives and outcomes of legitimate power over participation, we uncover institutional conditions, implementation issues, and local responses in different participatory planning configurations. We found that a “co-production” model emerged in China, highlighting the role of institutionalized participatory planning activities. The conclusion is threefold: 1) Shared objectives in the emerging neighborhood regeneration discourse constitute legitimate power over participation in China’s neighborhood regeneration; 2) The outcomes of legitimate power over participation are reflected in the local responses to the “co-production” activities; and 3) The “co-production” model—to produce planning schemes through co-design and joint-negotiation among multi-scalar actors including planners and residents—performs as an alternative to immature collaborative planning in China. Local governments can skillfully avoid direct confrontations with residents by introducing the function of community planners. These institutional arrangements of “co-production” have profoundly impacted the reshuffling of the state-society relationship in post-political China. While the implementation of China’s latest neighborhood regeneration policy shows post-political risks in terms of depoliticized narratives, instrumentalized planning strategies, and technicized planning tools, we find “co-production” to be fruitful in promoting substantive participation and stimulating the accumulation of local knowledge.
Planning Theory, 2023
How to capture, represent, and materialize public interest in urban planning has gone through mul... more How to capture, represent, and materialize public interest in urban planning has gone through multiple rounds of experimentation, crystallizing a number of regulatory regimes of planning in different historical and political-economic contexts. However, how to define the "public" and capture the public interest in urban planning remains problematic in both planning practices and democratic theory. Therefore, drawing upon Dewey and Habermas's view of the public sphere, this paper introduces a scale perspective to examine the subjects in planning and the power framing process in defining the public in urban regeneration policymaking. First, this paper revisits the current debates on the concept of public interest and identifies three interpretations of public interest materialization: utilitarian, unitary, and communicative. Second, this paper illustrates the institutionalization process of public interest in China's urban planning system. We critically examine the evolving mechanisms of public representation in China's urban regeneration policymaking since 1949. The institutionalization of public interest in China shows distinguished trajectories from the Western countries. These differences are caused
Drawing upon recent post-political critiques on ineffective participation and urban planning, thi... more Drawing upon recent post-political critiques on ineffective participation and urban planning, this paper reflects on the challenges facing participatory and collaborative planning in China's latest neighborhood regeneration practices. In 2017, Guangzhou launched a new micro-scale neighborhood regeneration program that shifted the discursive emphasis on participatory planning while China strives to create a new national image of a "people's city". This paper critically examines the implementation of old community renovation policies in 32 Chinese provinces and 776 neighborhood regeneration projects in Guangzhou. By examining the objectives and outcomes of legitimate power over participation, we uncover institutional conditions, implementation issues, and local responses in different participatory planning configurations. We found that a "co-production" model emerged in China, highlighting the role of institutionalized participatory planning activities. The conclusion is threefold: 1) Shared objectives in the emerging neighborhood regeneration discourse constitute legitimate power over participation in China's neighborhood regeneration; 2) The outcomes of legitimate power over participation are reflected in the local responses to the "co-production" activities; and 3) The "co-production" model-to produce planning schemes through co-design and joint-negotiation among multi-scalar actors including planners and residents-performs as an alternative to immature collaborative planning in China. Local governments can skillfully avoid direct confrontations with residents by introducing the function of community planners. These institutional arrangements of "co-production" have profoundly impacted the reshuffling of the state-society relationship in post-political China. While the implementation of China's latest neighborhood regeneration policy shows post-political risks in terms of depoliticized narratives, instrumentalized planning strategies, and technicized planning tools, we find "co-production" to be fruitful in promoting substantive participation and stimulating the accumulation of local knowledge.
The EARCAG-GPE conference 2023 is centred on “The Global East as Borderland”, through which we ha... more The EARCAG-GPE conference 2023 is centred on “The Global East as Borderland”, through which we have two primary goals. First, we echo Balibar's (2009, p. 200) call for borderland thinking, which aims to "find a way out of the seemingly absolute opposition of supranationalism and cosmopolitanism by "imagining borderlands in terms of overlapping open regions", which itself evolves into "inventing a way out of the classic dilemma of homogeneity and heterogeneity, sovereignty and subsidiarity." This is an exploration towards alternatives that allow multiple spatial processes to unfold and fold into each other,
• Borderlands in their process of networking and enabling mobilities of people, ideas and materials, capital and commodities, information and technology, “where opposites flow into one another, (Balibar, 2009, p. 210), 'where de-territorialization interrupts traditional concepts premised on bounded terrains (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987), such as community and citizenship, nation and region.
• Borderlands in their processes of commoning, where heterogeneous forces gather to constitute new commons in discursive, virtual, material or institutional forms. Noting the common might be a paradoxically deployed instrument in East Asia (Bae-Gyoon Park et al., 2012): a top-down process of demarcation, enclosure, and enforcement of security; and secondly but more importantly, bottom-up practices of small commons (Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri, 2017).
Second, we take borderland thinking as a site for historical legacies and contemporary logic to mingle, and for provincialised knowledge (west and east, north and south) to encounter and inspire each other (Müller & Trubina, 2020; Shin et al., 2016). This conference aims to bring in a broader set of intellectual perspectives while amplifying the voices of the Global East, even if in an inevitably incomplete manner.
The deep interface of the effectuated voluminous territories: gates, smooth and striated spaces, and the royal science in the Air Silk Road
Territory, Politics, Governance, 2022
While the scholarship on volumetric territory is now gaining momentum, our knowledge of the in-be... more While the scholarship on volumetric territory is now gaining momentum, our knowledge of the in-betweens of spheres is still limited. This paper studies the voluminous territory through a new lens: the deep interface as a destabilizing ontology that invites, enables and disciplines movements across the different spheres. The conceptualization of the deep interface unfolds in three layers: (1) an effective territory that treats territory as formed by the mobility of disruptive object–spaces; (2) a deep interface constituted by a series of gates distributed in various spheres for the succession of a relay along particular paths; and (3) the striation of smooth space by imposing the ‘royal science’ on the moving things, translating voluminous space to be a vector of political–rational calculations. Tracing the moving aeroplane as the disruptive object–space, we demonstrate how the three gates of the Air Silk Road scheme, Dara Sakor Airport and the mangrove forests constitute a deep interface after the construction of their interdependence by instantly allied forces.
Territory, Politics, Governance, 2022
While the scholarship on volumetric territory is now gaining momentum, our knowledge of the in-be... more While the scholarship on volumetric territory is now gaining momentum, our knowledge of the in-betweens of spheres is still limited. This paper studies the voluminous territory through a new lens: the deep interface as a destabilizing ontology that invites, enables and disciplines movements across the different spheres. The conceptualization of the deep interface unfolds in three layers: (1) an effective territory that treats territory as formed by the mobility of disruptive object–spaces; (2) a deep interface constituted by a series of gates distributed in various spheres for the succession of a relay along particular paths; and (3) the striation of smooth space by imposing the ‘royal science’ on the moving things, translating voluminous space to be a vector of political–rational calculations. Tracing the moving aeroplane as the disruptive object–space, we demonstrate how the three gates of the Air Silk Road scheme, Dara Sakor Airport and the mangrove forests constitute a deep interface after the construction of their interdependence by instantly allied forces.
While the scholarship on volumetric territorialisation is now gaining momentum, our knowledge of ... more While the scholarship on volumetric territorialisation is now gaining momentum, our knowledge of the in-betweens of spheres is still limited. This paper proposes to study the voluminous territory through a new lens: the deep interface as a destabilising ontology that invites, enables, and disciplines movements across the different spheres. The conceptualisation of the deep interface unfolds in three layers: 1). An effective territory that treats territory as formed by the mobility of disruptive object-spaces; 2). a deep interface constituted by a series of gates distributed in various spheres for the succession of a relay along particular paths; 3). the striation of smooth space by imposing the 'royal science' on the moving things, translating voluminous space to be a vector of political-rational calculations. Tracing the moving aeroplane as the disruptive object-space, we will demonstrate how the three gates of the Air Silk Road scheme, the Dara Sakor Airport, and the Mangrove forests, constitute a deep interface after the construction of their interdependence by instantly allied forces.
South Atlantic Quarterly, 2021
This essay explores the three currents of user-generated content (UGC) platform development in Ch... more This essay explores the three currents of user-generated content (UGC) platform development in China: one is full of improvised endeavors in the cultural production through amateur creativity; one is featured with affective laboring and networking by prosumers, who struggle with the algorithm-conditioned visibility of platforms; and one is featured with regulatory attempts by platforms and authorities to introduce a new “creator economy.” Our investigation into the platformization has focused on the multifaceted role of networking that unfolds among prosumers and platforms, and subsequently the changing networks and hierarchies of the crowd-based economy. We argue for an emerging landscape of multiple networked territories at multiple scales. The logic of visibility-making coordinates the distributed agency of networking by prosumers, platforms, and cultural and political authorities, giving birth to territories at multiple scales, from themed cultural communities to techno-giants with a sense of national pride.
The South Atlantic Quarterly, 2021
This essay attempts to explore the three currents of user-generated content (UGC) platform develo... more This essay attempts to explore the three currents of user-generated content (UGC) platform development in China: one is full of improvised endeavors in the cultural production through amateur creativity; one is featured with affective laboring and networking by prosumers, who struggle with the algorithm-conditioned visibility of platforms; and one is featured with regulatory attempts by platforms and authorities to introduce a new "creator economy". Our investigation into the platformization has focused on the multifaceted role of networking that unfolds among prosumers and platforms, and subsequently the changing networks and hierarchies of the crowdbased economy. We argue for an emerging landscape of multiple networked territories at multiple scales. The logic of visibility-making coordinates the distributed agency of networking by prosumers, platforms, and cultural and political authorities, giving birth to territories at multiple scales, from themed cultural communities to techno-giants with a sense of national pride.
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2021
In this article I aim to tackle two binary readings of scale: the networked/hierarchical and the ... more In this article I aim to tackle two binary readings of scale: the networked/hierarchical and the political/economic. By revisiting and reframing the concept of the archipelago, I develop a framework of relational hierarchical networks that foregrounds the mutual constitution of networks and hierarchies through a processual examination of scale production, taking the Shenzhen Fair as a case study. The fair is a valuable site for interrogating the issue of scale politics-that is, how to catapult a city into China's trading circuit, while simultaneously allowing a new epistemological construction of nationhood. I present two arguments in this study: first, territorial logic and capitalist logic are entangled in constructing networks for flows of discursive and material things, and these networks form new hierarchies of place. Second, various political and economic interests might gravitate towards different geographies through the same process of networking. I also assess how the newly produced state space is a relational archipelago that uni es formerly disparate places and sectors and enables the mobility of discursive and material things, and how the redistribution of these discourses and materials reconfigures the state space.
Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie , 2020
Co-production of motion pictures entails a variety of transborder mobility and trans-local produc... more Co-production of motion pictures entails a variety of transborder mobility and trans-local production networks, which are further complicated by state intervention through co-production treaties or arrangements. This paper unravels the process of Mainland China-Hong Kong film co-production that has been explosive after the promulgation of 'Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement' (CEPA). Drawing on the information of all Mainland-Hong Kong co-produced films between 1998 and 2017, we chart the collaborative networks of studios and creative staffs and examine the commercial and artistic performances of co-produced films to illustrate the impact of regulatory reform on the evolution of cross-border film co-production. We argue that CEPA is among the series of national regulatory reforms to enable marketization of the film industry and, further, to construct an imagined new identity of Chinese culture at the supranational scale. However, the cultural goals have been given way to the commercial interests of co-production with the implementation of CEPA policies.
EURASIAN GEOGRAPHY AND ECONOMICS, 2020
China has long positioned itself as the ancient civilization of the Far East, which only makes ge... more China has long positioned itself as the ancient civilization of the Far East, which only makes geographical sense through the lens of the West. The literature on China resonates with this geographic illustration, about which, critical scholars have cautioned against the imperial hegemony of Eurocentric knowledge.
In this paper, we attempt to answer the call for a Global East through the situated agency of the others in the geopolitics of knowledge circulation. We argue for a research frame that integrates the circulation of knowledge and mimicry -- the circulation of knowledge foregrounds transnational flows in a multifaceted and multidirectional process, whereas mimicry calls for attention to political/ soft subversions beneath the camouflaged behavior of coping.
By investigating scholarship on the particular topic of shanzhai, we probe into two layers of knowledge production: how the variegated scholarly citation behaviors reflect the situated agency that bears the effects of asymmetric power relations formed through multiple flows of people, idea, and capital, but nonetheless demonstrates an endeavor of autonomy.
Political Geography, 2020
Journal of Urban Affairs, 2020
City, Culture and Society, 2019
Subculture is the new chic in town.
From to Shanghai to Chennai, a new virtue of subculture chic... more Subculture is the new chic in town.
From to Shanghai to Chennai, a new virtue of subculture chic is in the making, gaining popularity across and among city mayors, corporates, entrepreneurs and mass consumers. This evolving trend is bringing previously unknown and unseen practitioners of subculture – popularly regarded as dissenters and wanderers (Gelder & Thornton, 1997) – into whirlpools of urban activities and development plans. This evolving trend is also foregrounding two entangled attempts of worlding practices: subcultures’ attempts at carving habitable spaces in cities, and in return cities’ attempts at experimenting with subcultures to establish a new niche for themselves in the urban world order (Roy & Ong, 2011; Wilson & Connery, 2007). Under these circumstances, three scholarly questions merit further interrogation. First, what are subcultures, in reference to mainstream culture? Second, what do the processes of territorialization of subculture entail? And third, how to understand the variegated worlding practices exercised by both subcultures and their hosting cities in a dynamic process?
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Jounal papers by June Wang
• Borderlands in their process of networking and enabling mobilities of people, ideas and materials, capital and commodities, information and technology, “where opposites flow into one another, (Balibar, 2009, p. 210), 'where de-territorialization interrupts traditional concepts premised on bounded terrains (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987), such as community and citizenship, nation and region.
• Borderlands in their processes of commoning, where heterogeneous forces gather to constitute new commons in discursive, virtual, material or institutional forms. Noting the common might be a paradoxically deployed instrument in East Asia (Bae-Gyoon Park et al., 2012): a top-down process of demarcation, enclosure, and enforcement of security; and secondly but more importantly, bottom-up practices of small commons (Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri, 2017).
Second, we take borderland thinking as a site for historical legacies and contemporary logic to mingle, and for provincialised knowledge (west and east, north and south) to encounter and inspire each other (Müller & Trubina, 2020; Shin et al., 2016). This conference aims to bring in a broader set of intellectual perspectives while amplifying the voices of the Global East, even if in an inevitably incomplete manner.
In this paper, we attempt to answer the call for a Global East through the situated agency of the others in the geopolitics of knowledge circulation. We argue for a research frame that integrates the circulation of knowledge and mimicry -- the circulation of knowledge foregrounds transnational flows in a multifaceted and multidirectional process, whereas mimicry calls for attention to political/ soft subversions beneath the camouflaged behavior of coping.
By investigating scholarship on the particular topic of shanzhai, we probe into two layers of knowledge production: how the variegated scholarly citation behaviors reflect the situated agency that bears the effects of asymmetric power relations formed through multiple flows of people, idea, and capital, but nonetheless demonstrates an endeavor of autonomy.
From to Shanghai to Chennai, a new virtue of subculture chic is in the making, gaining popularity across and among city mayors, corporates, entrepreneurs and mass consumers. This evolving trend is bringing previously unknown and unseen practitioners of subculture – popularly regarded as dissenters and wanderers (Gelder & Thornton, 1997) – into whirlpools of urban activities and development plans. This evolving trend is also foregrounding two entangled attempts of worlding practices: subcultures’ attempts at carving habitable spaces in cities, and in return cities’ attempts at experimenting with subcultures to establish a new niche for themselves in the urban world order (Roy & Ong, 2011; Wilson & Connery, 2007). Under these circumstances, three scholarly questions merit further interrogation. First, what are subcultures, in reference to mainstream culture? Second, what do the processes of territorialization of subculture entail? And third, how to understand the variegated worlding practices exercised by both subcultures and their hosting cities in a dynamic process?