Social and Economic History Group Lecture

Speaker:
Jesse Rodenbiker (Assistant Professor of Geography at Rutgers University-New Brunswick)

Topic:
Biodiversity as Transboundary Object: Centers and Edges of Marine Wildlife Markets Across Cities
作為「跨界之物」的生物多樣性：跨城市海產市場的中心與邊陲

Date and Time:
Tuesday, July 15, 2026. 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.

Place:
Room 802 at ITH

Language:
English

Registration:
Click Here to Register (redirecting to Chinese version)

Please Note:

1. To participate, please register online in advance. Registration is open until July 8, 2026 (Wednesday). Successful registrants will receive an email notice. Walk-ins are welcome but lunch will not be available for those without prior registration.
2. If you are unable to attend after registration, please let us know in advance and prevent from being excluded from our future events. (Contact: sehrgith@gmail.com)
3. This lecture will be held in a physical format. If it is changed to an online format for any reason, we will notify later.
4. Professor Rodenbiker’s monograph on the topic this lecture is available at the following link: https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501769016/ecological-states/#bookTabs=1.

Abstract:

Biodiversity loss is often thought of in functionalist terms in relation to population size and area-based abundance. Departing from this functionalist model, Rodenbiker argues for a relational approach to biodiversity that extends beyond boundary objects, such as an ecosystem's areal extent or the edges of the city. In making this argument, this lecture contributes to reconceptualizing biodiversity as a transboundary object.

While the impacts of overfishing on marine wildlife are well-documented, the role of urban markets in driving biodiversity loss at sea remains understudied. Drawing on a placed-based planetary urbanization and urban political ecology framework, Rodenbiker's lecture analyzes extensive urban-hinterland relationships, inter-urban trade dynamics, and trans-oceanic circulations that undergird the transmutation of marine wildlife into commodities.

The operational landscape examined includes global centers of trade, particularly Hong Kong and Singapore, Southeast Asian cities that serve as labor markets, as well as international networks of traders. Mixed methods field research reveals extractive, circulatory, and commodification processes surrounding high-value marine wildlife commodities encompassing sea cucumber, abalone, fish maw and shark fins. Shark fins serve as the central commodity analyzed. In sum, a relational conceptualization of biodiversity loss attentive to how extended urbanization processes affect life beyond cities provides a critical entry point for reimagining biodiversity conservation and sustainable urbanization in a time of planetary polycrisis.

Lecturer’s Bio: Jesse Rodenbiker is a human-environment geographer and interdisciplinary social scientist focusing on environmental governance, urbanization, and social inequality in China and globally. Rodenbiker is the author of the open-access book Ecological States: Politics of Science and Nature in Urbanizing China (2023, Cornell University Press), which was recognized as a 2025 Ludwik Fleck Prize Finalist by the Society for Social Studies of Science and a 2026 ACLS Open Access Book Prize Finalist in Environmental Humanities.

Rodenbiker currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Geography at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Previously, he has served as an Associate Research Scholar at Princeton University with the Center on Contemporary China, a Cornell University Atkinson Postdoctoral Research Associate in Sustainability with the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, and as a Visiting Scholar at Sichuan University in the School of Public Administration and Department of Land Resource Management. He holds a doctorate in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley.