The Material Geographies of the Belt and Road Initiative
Infrastructures and Political Ecologies on the New Silk Road
Edited by Elia Apostolopoulou, Han Cheng, Jonathan Silver and Alan Wiig
Published
Jun 1, 2025Page count
272 pagesISBN
978-1529240634Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University PressPublished
Jun 1, 2025Page count
272 pagesISBN
978-1529240658Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University Press
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), commonly called the New Silk Road, is a huge infrastructure project currently revitalising or creating new trading routes and large developments across the globe. It is estimated to cost up to US$8 trillion and impact more than 65% of the world’s population.
This book explores the unequal ways this controversial project is altering livelihoods, places and the environment. From road building projects in Nairobi to grassroots environmental activism in Thailand, researchers from the Global North and South analyse the real-world impacts of this unprecedented project, bringing together critical geography and political ecology approaches.
Elia Apostolopoulou is Senior Lecturer at Imperial College London and Senior Associate at the University of Cambridge.
Han Cheng is Max Weber Foundation Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.
Jonathan Silver is Senior Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield.
Alan Wiig is Associate Professor at the University of Florida.
Part 1: The world transformed: Introducing the Belt and Road Initiative
1. The need for a grounded, material analysis of the New Silk Road - All editors
2. Transforming political ecologies and Infrastructures: The material geographies of the Belt and Road Initiative - All editors
Part 2: The Political Ecologies of the BRI
3. China's Water Governmentality and the Shaping of Hydrosocial Territories: A Case of the Lancang–Mekong Cooperation Mechanism - Yu Wang, Xiaofeng Liu Wenya
4. The contested coal-fired power in the Belt and Road Initiative: Indonesia as a case study - Bowen Gu
5. Behind railways of hope: Environmental politics of the Belt and Road initiative in Southwest China -Xiaofeng Liu
6. Dynamics of grassroots environmentalism: The case of natural resource conflicts in Thailand’s Special Economic Zones - Ratchada Arpornsilp
7. Speculative and (Post-)political ecologies of the New Yangon City Development - Alex Cullen
8. The BRI’s (supra)sacralizing effects: Contesting littoral spaces of fishing, faith, and futurity along Sri Lanka’s Western Coastline - Orlando Woods
9. The political ecology of Chinese hydropower in Cambodia - Tim Frewer and Sarah Milner
Part 3: The Infrastructures of the BRI
10. Chinese and Japanese infrastructure assemblages in Indonesia: Case studies of railway projects in Indonesia - Caixia Mao
11. Going down the wrong road? Critically assessing the impact of BRI-backed projects on lives and livelihoods in two Caribbean cities - Aleem Mahabir, Patrice Edwards, Robert Kinlocke, and Alex Moulton
12. Chinese trade, investment and financing controversies in South Africa's underdevelopmental mega-projects - Patrick Bond
13. Ring roads, revived plans, unexpected outcomes: Capturing value in Nairobi’s (not so peripheral) areas - Miriam Maina and Liza Cirolia
14. A Postcolonial BRI? Dependency, Geopolitics, and Development within China-Latin America relations - Simone Vegliò
15. Beyond the logistical monolith. Multiplicity and differentiation along the Adriatic Corridor - Alberto Valz Gris, Leonardo Ramondetti, Astrid Safina, Angelo Sampieri and Francesca Governa
16. Horizons of competition: organizing uncertainty in the Georgian BRI - Evelina Gambino
