# Ka-ming Wu, "Infrastructural Urbanism in Contemporary China: Volunteering, Infrastructures and Civic Imaginations" (Leiden UP, 2026) Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-anthropology-901932/ka-ming-wu-infrastructural-urbanism-in-contemporary-china-volunteering-infrastructures-and-civic-imaginations-leiden-up-2026 Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-anthropology-901932/ka-ming-wu-infrastructural-urbanism-in-contemporary-china-volunteering-infrastructures-and-civic-imaginations-leiden-up-2026.md Podcast: [New Books in Anthropology](https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-anthropology-901932) Published: 2026-08-09T08:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK4289504256.mp3 Audio file: https://pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK4289504256.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-anthropology-901932/episodes/ka-ming-wu-infrastructural-urbanism-in-contemporary-china-volunteering-infrastructures-and-civic-imaginations-leiden-up-2026 Duration seconds: 3147 ## Resource Infrastructural Urbanism in Contemporary China: Volunteering, Infrastructures and Civic Imaginations (Leiden University Press, 2026) examines how Chinese citizens negotiate their everyday experiences with urban spaces, improved city infrastructure, and an increasingly tight surveillance regime through volunteering. This book asks how citizens connect to city spaces where facilities for transit, culture, and leisure have been substantially upgraded. Drawing on extensive research, Ka-ming Wu investigates how citizens conduct volunteer activities that not only promote party-state campaigns and engage with new urban spaces and services, but also experiment with political, social, and cultural rights, including advocating for the rights of people with disabilities and promoting unofficial interpretations of national history. The book argues that volunteering has become an urban practice through which citizens navigate existing hierarchies of urban and rural status, gender, age, and ability, while contesting top-down, mega-event-driven urbanization. It situates Chinese everyday urbanism within the context of China's hosting of multiple international events, its expanding public and digital infrastructures, heightened party-state control, and burgeoning digital activism. The book contributes to the infrastructural turn in urban anthropology and the field of China studies, offering a new understanding of urban rights and public access in contemporary China. NOTE: The book Ka-ming Wu mentioned in the interview is Stephen Graham’s Cities under Siege: The New Military Urbanism (Verso, 2010). Wu Ka-ming is Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, with courtesy appointments in the Department of Anthrop… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-anthropology-901932/episodes/ka-ming-wu-infrastructural-urbanism-in-contemporary-china-volunteering-infrastructures-and-civic-imaginations-leiden-up-2026/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-anthropology-901932/ka-ming-wu-infrastructural-urbanism-in-contemporary-china-volunteering-infrastructures-and-civic-imaginations-leiden-up-2026.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.