In an urban world, how does nature come to life? How does it wither and die? In this third volume on the ecologies of urbanism in Asia, authors bring questions about ecological vitality into conversation with the everyday human experiences that shape the form and meaning of urban nature. Such a conversation reaches beyond the question of what “counts” as urban nature in a given time and place, and invites us to think through the many nested scales at which nonhuman life, death, thriving, and withering come into being in the twenty-first century. Although the title suggests stark contrasts betw ... More

In an urban world, how does nature come to life? How does it wither and die? In this third volume on the ecologies of urbanism in Asia, authors bring questions about ecological vitality into conversation with the everyday human experiences that shape the form and meaning of urban nature. Such a conversation reaches beyond the question of what “counts” as urban nature in a given time and place, and invites us to think through the many nested scales at which nonhuman life, death, thriving, and withering come into being in the twenty-first century. Although the title suggests stark contrasts between beginnings and endings, the book demonstrates clearly that the making and unmaking of urban nature is a constant, social-biophysical process. This book is the first of its kind: while many scholars detail the everyday life of nature in cities worldwide, this volume uses the unique analytic of ecologies of urbanism to show that social ideas of vitality and disposability – of life and death – play an important role in the ways urban inhabitants relate to the non-human world. The book brings the social life of nature on a hyper-urban planet into sharp relief, while also showing that the social and biophysical worlds are always coproduced.