Infrastructuring planetary rural geographies: A view from China’s rural construction movement

Abstract

This commentary responds to Wang et al.'s (2025) call for planetary rural geographies by attending to the neglected infrastructural dimensions. In so doing, we show how China's rural construction movement demonstrates Wang et al.'s (2025) three geographies of planetary rurality: as spaces of crisis, conflict, and hope. Simultaneously, we address how planetary rural thinking can foreground infrastructural geographies and their destabilization of urban-centered discourses, leading to a reconsideration of rural–urban relationality. We then identify new insights that critical infrastructural studies offer to planetary rural geographies. This includes an emphasis on the material grounds, hidden politics, and non-linear temporal patterns of rural–urban interactions. We conclude by suggesting that a global comparative study of rural construction movements can take the pluriversal planetary rural geographies agenda forward.