A ‘City in Nature’ and its porcine interlopers: Confronting the edges of urban ecological order

Publication Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

11-2025

Abstract

Initiatives intended to manage urban environments as functional ecosystems are on the rise globally. Approaching city land as terrain that might, if properly cultivated, provide human residents with prioritized ecosystem services and benefits, such efforts take a decidedly instrumental approach to these landscapes. Critical geographers have emphasized the biopolitical dimensions of these interventions, foregrounding the imbrication of other-than-human nature in state-led projects of securing the conditions for (particular forms of) human life. Through a case study of human-wild boar entanglements in Singapore, this article examines the limits and moments of breakdown that mark efforts to mobilize urban terrain and inhabitants in this manner. Tracing the disordering effects of a largely unwanted species that has flourished in landscapes increasingly scripted as vital natural infrastructure for the city-state, the account demonstrates the confounding, disruptive potential of projects intended to rationalize complex urban ecologies for anthropocentric ends.

Keywords

Wildlife management, urban governance, natural infrastructure

Discipline

Asian Studies | Nature and Society Relations | Urban Studies and Planning

Research Areas

Integrative Research Areas

Publication

Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space

ISSN

2514-8486

Identifier

10.1177/25148486251400184

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486251400184

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