Eco-Futurism and Neocolonialism: The Hidden Costs of Global Development Models

At the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), the Orfalea Center for Global & International Studies hosted an impactful conference from October 25th to 28th, 2023, titled “The Future of the Amazon: A New Era of Indigenous Activism, Post-Carbon Environmental Models, and Latin American Partnerships with China and the Global South.” This event sparked discussions on the ethics of development models and their socio-environmental costs. This piece critiques eco-futurism as seen in cities like Singapore, revealing how these “green” models often rely on labor exploitation and resource-intensive practices. The analysis given challenges the notion of progress, emphasizing that truly sustainable development requires inclusivity and ethical accountability.

Ben-Eng Lim addressing the audience during the opening of the The Future of the Amazon International Conference

In recent years, the concept of sustainable development has gained traction in global conversations, with cities like Singapore being hailed as models of eco-friendly urban planning. However, beneath the facade of these mega-structures lies a paradoxical reality. These cities, celebrated for their innovative use of green spaces and technological advancements, often rely on unsustainable practices and exploitative labor systems. On February 23rd, Professor Eng-Beng Lim, Associate Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Dartmouth College, gave his talk “Biophilic Eco-Structural Futurism” at the Future of the Amazon: A New Era of Indigenous Activism, Post-Carbon Environmental Models, and Latin American Partnerships with China and the Global South international conference and discussed the hidden costs of these supposed development models of the future on display in Singapore. Though not extractivist in the same vein as was discussed at the conference and in the volume The Tropical Silk Road: China and the Future of South America which was launched at the conference, Eng-Beng explained how extractivism is very much at work, and discussed a range of themes such as capitalist exploitation, neocolonial dynamics, and the social implications for marginalized communities. 

Developmentalism in Ecuador and Brazil has long been dominated by capitalist exploitation, indigenous dispossession, bureaucratic corruption, and capitalist desire; however, there are alternatives to exploitative extraction. These alternatives come from indigenous communities themselves, appealing for an “eco-citizenship.”

How, then, can we think about these new relations between China and South America? Eng-Beng posits that China is redefining its constitutive logics with a “wolf warrior masculinity" or a Chinese savior complex constituted by racial injury rather than colonial acquaintance. He stated that “these are seduction scenes for the cast of characters from Chinese melodrama in the performance and production of a partnership between China and South America. Who is the abusive husband, secret mistress, closeted lover; how are promiscuity or these stages of intimacy being instrumentalised by China and South American partners for profit, neoliberal cover, and a different kind of development narrative that eschews the linear chronological model of Europe?” Eng-Beng offered some answers to these questions in his presentation.

Singapore as a Counterpoint to China

Eng-Beng presented these provocations to the conference, then pivoted to Singapore as a counterpoint to China. “It gives us another way to think about South-South alliances…Singapore is a transnational conduit between ‘China and the rest,’” as Eng-Beng put it. Eng-Beng proposed the concept of “Biophilic Eco-Structural Futurism” and counterposed it to the “Extractivist Futurism,” present in Tropical Silk Road, the edited volume that was the feature of this conference. “Eco structural is my neologism that brings together ecological and infrastructure projects with a disciplinary and futuristic design ethos that leverages liberal and capitalist desire for planetary consciousness and good life. Biophilia refers to an innate urge to affiliate with other forms of life, a psychic affinity or attraction to all that's vital to life. Biophiolic Infrustractural futurism describes the mega structural projects that are made possible by extractivism” stated Eng-Beng. Unlike the Amazon biome, Singapore is a highly industrialized city-state with few natural resources, which boasts its status as one of the greenest cities in the world. Singapore is entirely reliant on imported resources, and, as phrased by Eng-Beng, “traffics in the tropical imaginary as an entirely made up city that has been largely contented and landscaped to nature.” 

Eng-Beng Lim presents the last talk of the event

A Different Kind of Extractivism?

Singapore is not, however, extractivist in mining, agribusiness and like the other Belt and Road Initiative mega-projects discussed during our conference: Singapore is one of the top three global oil trading and refining centers As a site of refinement Eng-Beng, emphasized “its infrastructures are a consortium of late capitalist conscience, efficiency, innovation, beauty and dream. It is the place where the shoe has already been made, the diamond cut, and the food packaged for delivery. It's quite literally a shopping arcade as a nation state.” While popularly known for its award winning airport, transportation systems and efficiencies, “Singapore's infrastructure capital fetishism, like commodity fetishism, obfuscates the mode of production around oil and shifts the gaze towards its mega infrastructural facilities that are spectacular, world famous and ever growing,” stated Eng-Beng. However, petroleum refining, storage and distribution infrastructure is integral to global energy trade.

Sharing some excerpts from his writings, Eng-Beng explained how Singapore’s ascension as a model city state and English-speaking Asian powerhouse make it a unique case of global performance and culture. Synchronous lateralization of infrastructural development, much like wider transnationalism, brings new ideas of power, size, form and size by thinking through the hybrid and relational interactions of architecture and spatial studies, performance and cultural studies, and its sexual politics. With this mode of development comes neoliberal authoritarian, oppressive and extractivist characteristics to the designs. With a new era and rise of super modern structures and sites like Singapore, Doha and Abu Dhabi mark what Eng-Beng called “the rise and expansion of Minoritarian architecture as an analytic and aesthetic new players and collaborators.” Crucial to this change are the structures of buildings that are spatialized, synced and signed, often in ways that make race and queerness undetectable or absorptive within the environments. 

These mega structures, according to Eng-Beng, are inspired by 1960s imaginaries, looking to solve problems of urban density by imagining and tactically conceiving blueprints that compress the cities into a building. He argues that such cities, like Singapore, are a neoliberal and authoritarian iteration of that imaginary of the 60s, and it behooves us to think about questions of extractivism and new versions of capitalist exploitation. 

Eng-Beng Lim introduces the concept of “Biophilic Ecostructural Futurism,” highlighting the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore as a key example

The Human Impact

Eng-Ben argued that, by exploring how megastructures are built, such as those in Singapore and other global cities, we can better analyze architecture, infrastructure, and cultural dynamics in response to global phenomena like climate change, migration, and neoliberal globalization. In his work, Eng-Beng examines the role of these developments in impacting the survival of racial migrants and queer communities, particularly in how groups design structures to manage and control urban spaces. He uses Singapore and the United States as comparative examples to show how these megastructures reflect both broader societal shifts and the politics of space, performance, and identity. These megastructures impose a form of control over desire by creating environments that sterilize and regulate human interaction. This is especially true of queer desire, as we learned in Eng-Beng’s explanation of the erasure of queerness itself in the architecture and urban design.  What we should look at now is how this model of architectural control operates within broader power structures, specifically how officials in Singapore export their model to other parts of the Global South and China.

Such prominent architectural projects in Singapore represent the city’s infrastructural obsession with creating polished, utopian spaces that project wealth and power. However, these developments are underpinned by labor exploitation. While touted as a step towards a new era of environmental co-existence, these hybrid developments are only made possible in a highly unequal system of power and wealth that is more prone to repeated exploitation than transformational consciousness around ecological justice. This inequality is evident when looking at exactly who is building this “future.” These futuristic cities rely on migrant labor to sustain their growth. In Singapore, for example, Bangladeshi and South Asian workers toil around the clock to build and maintain the city's infrastructure. These workers are often subjected to harsh working conditions, low wages, and limited rights. In explaining this, Eng-Beng is calling to attention how the progressive rhetoric of such hybrid developments may in fact be new forms of exploitation.