Academy of Interdisciplinary Studies (AIS) Sustainability Seminar Series Spring 2026 - Infrastructuring Mobilities in the Greater Bay Area: The Rise of Infrastructural Regionalism at the Conjecture of Polycrisis
Supporting the below United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:支持以下聯合國可持續發展目標：支持以下联合国可持续发展目标：
At the conjuncture of multiscalar polycrisis – marked by global economic downturn, technological rivalry, geopolitical frictions, and pandemic disruptions – the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) has become a testing ground for an infrastructural fix to reconfigure cross-border regionalism. Moving beyond a distributional lens, this talk introduces a mobility perspective, viewing territorial-institutional and socio-spatial disparities not as obstacles to be rectified, but as productive asymmetries strategically leveraged by the state via infrastructural interventions to animate innovation-driven regional economies and orchestrate cross-boundary governance. These dynamics is conceptualised as infrastructuring mobilities to dissect three distinct forms in the GBA. The mirrored form replicates and relocates Hong Kong’s academic infrastructures into mainland cities, generating routinized flows of students, researchers and symbolic capital. The integrated form entails the rescaling of access to social infrastructure (e.g. education, healthcare, and eldercare), enabling cross-border daily commuting, short-term visits, and long-term migration. The enclaved form consolidates diverse infrastructural functions within spatially bounded megaprojects, channeling inflows of capital, talent and knowledge to transform these enclaves into strategic nodes of innovation and productivity amid regional economic restructuring. The talk further breaks down these dynamics into technological, discursive, and affective aspects of governance in a regional context, explicating infrastructuring mobilities as an emergent form of statecraft to offer a useful concept for new regionalism and critical infrastructure studies.
Date
28 Apr 2026 (Tue)
Time
12:00pm-1:30pm (HKT)
Format
In-person
Topic
“Infrastructuring Mobilities in the Greater Bay Area: The Rise of Infrastructural Regionalism at the Conjecture of Polycrisis”
Speaker
Prof. Shenjing He - Lady Edith Kotewall Professor in the Built Environment, Head of the Department of Urban Planning and Design, The University of Hong Kong
Moderator
Prof. Laurence Delina, Associate Professor, Division of Environment and Sustainability, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Venue
Room 6591, Lift 31-32, Academic Building, HKUST
Registration
Shenjing He is Lady Edith Kotewall Professor in the Built Environment, Head of the Department of Urban Planning and Design, and Founding Director of the Social Infrastructure for Equity and Well-being (SIEW Lab) at the University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Base of State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Building and Urban Science. She has published widely on topics of urban redevelopment/ gentrification, urban and regional governance, urban-rural interface, housing and well-being, and healthy cities. Shenjing was awarded the Outstanding Young Scientists Fund by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong SAR Government in 2025. She was elected to be a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (UK) In 2021. Since 2023, she has served as Co-Editor-in-Chief for Area Development and Policy, and from 2012 to 2024 as an editor for Urban Studies. Currently she leads multiple research projects on social infrastructure, cross-boundary governance in the Greater Bay Area, neighborhood governance, social interaction and mental health in the digital era.