CONTESTED METABOLIC NODES : Shareholding Cooperatives and Planetary Ruralization in China

China's recent shareholding cooperative (SC) reform heralds a shift from expropriation‐led rural change to a post‐expropriation regime in which the countryside is reconstituted through circulation, capitalization, and new forms of collective governance. Existing interpretations, whether framed as market‐driven de‐collectivization, state‐led re‐collectivization, or pragmatic neo‐collectivization, struggle to grasp the planetary and relational dynamics through which these reforms actually unfold. Drawing on multi‐scalar fieldwork in Jiyuan, an inland municipality that institutionalized SCs across 525 villages, the article advances a framework that conceptualizes SCs as contested metabolic nodes where state directives, capital flows, and local aspirations are continuously translated and reworked. Through comparative analysis of three villages located across an expanded urban–rural interface, the study shows how economic restructuring and territorial remaking materialize through differentiated practices of defensive stabilization, augmentative experimentation, and performative visibility. Relational autonomy emerges as a capacity generated through circulations: villages negotiate actively within and across the state and market logics. By foregrounding the metabolic processes where rural commons recompose collective assets, risks, and identities, the article repositions corporatized villages as active sites of planetary ruralization and laboratories of contemporary rural transformation.