Speaker:
Shenjing He
Department Head and Professor – Department of Urban Planning and Design, University of Hong Kong
Talk title: Variegated urban entrepreneurialism and a conjunctural analysis of the Chinese case
Abstract:
Since its inception in the 1990s, the concept urban entrepreneurialism has evolved into variegated forms through intertwining with emergent trends in contemporary society. In this talk, I first review how several influential trends, i.e., financialization, environmentalization, depoliticization, have redefined contemporary urban entrepreneurialism. I will then locate this concept in the Chinese context through situated and contextualized analyses of entrepreneurial discourses, strategies, policies, and practices. Cases from urban neighbourhoods, small towns, and global metropolises will be briefly discussed to illustrate how variegated urban entrepreneurialism is unfolded at multiscales and multidirections, and reinforces uneven development and inequalities under global capitalism and local conjunctures.
Speaker bio:
Shenjing He is Lady Edith Kotewall Professor in the Built Environment, Head of the Department of Urban Planning and Design, and Founding Director of the Social Infrastructure for Equity and Well-being (SIEW Lab) at the University of Hong Kong. She has published widely on topics of urban redevelopment/ gentrification, urban and regional governance, urban-rural interface, housing and well-being, and healthy cities. In 2021, she was elected to be a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (UK). Since 2023, she has served as Co-Editor-in-Chief for Area Development and Policy, and from 2012 to 2024 as an editor for Urban Studies. At SIEW Lab, she leads multiple research projects on education-featured gated communities, multi-dimensional housing inequalities in megacities, cross-border governance in the Greater Bay Area, rural revitalization and conservation in Hong Kong.
Shenjing’s research interests cover urban redevelopment/gentrification, policy mobility and entrepreneurial urbanism, rural-urban migration and informal housing, urban development and housing price mechanism, rural-urban interface, and health geography. She has published more than 130 journal articles and book chapters in both Chinese and English. She is the co-author of “Urban Poverty in China” (Edward Elgar, 2010), co-editor of “Locating Right to the City in the Global South” (Routledge, 2013), “Urban living: Mobility, sociability, and wellbeing” (Springer, 2016), and “Changing China: Migration, Communities and Governance in Cities” (Routledge, 2017), “The Speculative City: Emergent Forms and Norms of the Built Environment” (University of Toronto Press, 2021). She guest edited special issues for Environment and Planning A (2012), Urban Studies (2015), Eurasian Geography and Economics (2015), Urban Geography (2017), Journal of Urban Affairs (2018), Geoforum (2018), Sustainable Cities and Society (2020), Cities (2021), Journal of Housing and the Built Environment (2021), Land (2021). Shenjing was listed by Elsevier as one of the most cited researchers in mainland China (social sciences) for six consecutive years (2015-2020) and HKU scholar in the top 1% since 2016. She was conferred the award of Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) in 2021.
In July 2020, Shenjing established the SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE FOR EQUITY AND WELLBEING (SIEW) Lab, aiming to interrogate the long-lasting and deep-seated problems of growth and inequality in three major types of urban social infrastructure, namely housing, healthcare, and education, with an ultimate interest in improving opportunity, equity and wellbeing among urban citizens. For further details, please visit: https://www.siewlab.hku.hk/
This is hybrid event hosted in Geog 229 and on zoom.