Material Geographies of the Belt and Road Initiative

Elia Apostolopoulou is Associate Professor at Imperial College London. Han Cheng is Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science.Jonathan Silver is Deputy Director and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield.Alan Wiig is Associate Professor at the University of Florida.

• Introduction: The World Transformed: Grounding the Belt and Road Initiative - Elia Apostolopoulou, Han Cheng, Jonathan Silver and Alan Wiig1.The Contested Coal-Fired Power in the Belt and Road Initiative: Indonesia as a Case Study - Bowen Gu2.Dynamics of Grassroots Collectivism in Thailand’s Special Economic Zones: Cases of Natural Resource Conflicts Within the Belt and Road Initiative - Ratchada Arpornsilp 3.Railways of Hope, Railways of Conflicts: Governance of the Domestic Environmental Impacts of a Belt and Road Project - Xiaofeng Liu4.A Debt to Whom? The Nature Questions in Sino-Sri Lankan Development Narratives - Orlando Woods, Kanchana Ruwanpura, Loritta Chan and Barnabas Mah5.Waiting, Acceleration, Stabilisation: Polychronic Temporalities as Drivers of a Large-Scale Chinese Green Technology Project in Thuringia, Eastern Germany - Hannes Langguth6.Silk Road on Ice: Extractivism, Climate Change, and Resistances - Ksenija Hanaček7.Donor Competition, Local Agency, and Contingency: Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway in Indonesia - Caixia Mao 8.A Postcolonial Belt and Road Initiative? Dependency, Development, and Geopolitics in China-Latin America Relations - Simone Vegliò9.The Elusive Rainbow at the End of the Belt and Road: Chinese Investment, Finance and Trade Controversies in Southern Africa - Patrick Bond10.Beyond the Logistical Monolith: Multiplicity and Differentiation Along the Adriatic Corridor - Francesca Governa, Leonardo Ramondetti, Astrid Safina, Angelo Sampieri and Alberto Valz Gris11.Capitalizing on the Logistical Future: Discounting Uncertainty in the Georgian Belt and Road Initiative - Evelina Gambino12.Infrastructure-Led Development, Urban Transformation, and Inequality in China’s Belt and Road Initiative: A Marxist Postcolonial Geographies Analysis - Elia ApostolopoulouAfterword: The Material Futures of the Belt and Road Initiative - Elia Apostolopoulou, Han Cheng, Jonathan Silver and Alan Wiig

'Bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives, this timely collection reveals how Belt and Road Initiative projects transform ecologies, territories, and power relations—essential reading for scholars and practitioners of infrastructure, development, human geography and political ecology.' Seth Schindler, University of Manchester