Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

acceptedVersion

Publication Date

6-2025

Abstract

This paper explores how ecological responsibility becomes distributed across the surfaces and volumes of the city. Our focus is urban mosquito management – specifically, the management of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the vector by which dengue and several other diseases are transmitted to humans – and the governance strategies deployed in Singapore to manage breeding sites and mosquito outbreaks. Whilst the governance of nature in Singapore is usually undertaken by the state, the effective management of mosquitoes requires responsibility for ecological management to become distributed throughout the city. Residents are expected to assume responsibility for surficial cleanliness and the removal of stagnant water in which mosquitoes can breed, whilst pest management companies are contracted to conduct atmospheric fogging to control mosquitoes’ movement throughout volumetric space. Altogether, this distribution demands that residents and the private sector partner with the state to manage urban nature. The relative inefficacy of these efforts reveals a spatial politics of urban mosquito management. These politics raise questions about the relationality of ecological responsibility, and trouble the logic of distributed governance that defines the multispecies city.

Keywords

ecological responsibility, mosquitoes, volumetric urbanism, relational space, urban political ecology

Discipline

Demography, Population, and Ecology | Urban Studies and Planning

Research Areas

Integrative Research Areas

Publication

Urban Geography

First Page

1

Last Page

23

ISSN

0272-3638

Identifier

10.1080/02723638.2025.2512068

Publisher

Taylor and Francis

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2025.2512068

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