ZENG BINCHENG (JOYCE)

PhD Student

Research Title: Power Dynamics and Urban-Rural Relations in the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone: Landscapes of Green Development
Research Group: Social & Cultural Geography (SCG)
Thesis Advisor: Prof Tim Bunnell

More than three decades after the Singapore-Malaysia-Indonesia “Growth Triangle” was first proposed, the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone (JSSEZ) marks a new phase of cross-border regionalisation amid shifting geopolitical and socio-economic dynamics. It has become a strategic arena where global capital, state players, and local communities negotiate new development agendas. Joyce’s PhD thesis examines how multi-scalar spatial politics interact to transform urbanisation trajectories of the SEZ, and how these power relations, in turn, are shaped and is shaping wider urban-rural relations. By bridging urban and rural perspectives, the project seeks to understand urbanisation processes and the power dynamics underlying cross-border development and territorial transformation in Southeast Asia.

Joyce holds a Bachelor‘s degree in Urban Studies and an M.Phil. in geography from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. With interdisciplinary research experiences, her research interests focus on the processes of urbanisation/ruralisation and the power relations behind. Her previous work investigated the changing social representations of rurality in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta cities in China. Prior to joining NUS, she worked as an urban planner at the Urban Planning and Design Institute of Shenzhen. She collaborated closely with Prof. Dariusz Wójcik and co-authored several projects on financial geography, before commencing her PhD.