Zusammenfassung Für Millionen Bewohner Schanghais in den niedrigeren Rängen der Gesellschaft schr... more Zusammenfassung Für Millionen Bewohner Schanghais in den niedrigeren Rängen der Gesellschaft schreibt sich die Geschichte der großen urbanen Transformation der Stadt seit den 1990er Jahren mit den Tränen um den Verlust ihrer Wohnun-gen, Nachbarschaften und Existenzgrundlagen. In diesem Beitrag begründe ich Hausbesetzungen als einfache, wirkungsvolle und potenziell radikale Strategie, um das Leid der aus ihren Wohnungen vertriebenen Menschen zu überwinden, um den gewaltsamen Akkumulationsprozess aktiver unter Kontrolle zu bringen und um dem hegemonialen Diskurs über Wohnungseigentum, der die rasche Veränderung im Stadtraum Schanghais unter-mauert, entgegenzutreten. Die Argumentation gründet sich auf eine eingehende Fallstudie einer Familie, die durch die Weltausstellung 2010 aus ihrer Wohnung vertrieben wurde und daraufhin eine Umsetzungswohnung besetzte. Deren Auffassung von Recht und Anrecht, die auf lokal bestehenden kulturellen und moralischen Vor-stellungen beruht, verschafft ni...
This article examines the Chinese government's ongoing controlled experiment to empower rural com... more This article examines the Chinese government's ongoing controlled experiment to empower rural communities and revitalise rural spaces through the fictitious commodification of rural collective operational construction land (i.e., land used for commercial or operational businesses). We show how local governments in Pidu, one of the selected experiment sites, exploited the political opening to pursue their own landed interests and, in doing so, continued to exploit and marginalise rural communities. The competing interests of local and central governments in rural land commodification-combined with the ambiguous regulatory framework for this type of rural land and the overall conditions of the land market-frustrated the complete and effective commodification of such land. Broadening these lessons to experiments in general, we suggest that effective monitoring mechanisms centring processual and distributional justice are needed to keep experiments in check and realise their potential in bringing about positive changes.
This article examines the hitherto overlooked temporal politics and resultant injustice in theori... more This article examines the hitherto overlooked temporal politics and resultant injustice in theorizing urban transformations in China. Through a micro-level, in-depth case study of the lifespan of Guangling New City, it unravels the complex and at times conflicting ways in which different temporal dimensions of this mega project were manipulated, exploited and experienced. In particular, it unravels the organization of, and the divisions within, the dominant elites, and illustrates how their conflicting and changing interests in time shaped the trajectory of the new city project. Residents caught up in the urbanization process were not completely opposed to the dominant project temporalities. Some of them submitted partially to project promises and visions; whereas others had gained some marginal degree of control over project temporalities, both of which contradictorily reproduced their submission to dominant interests and power in the urban development game. Time thus played a critical role in enabling and sustaining land-based accumulation, despite injustice therein. On this basis, this article calls for a more grounded approach to bring out the messy and contradictory temporal politics of urban development in order to improve the planning and delivery of megaprojects.
Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 2020
In this commentary, based on a close reading of media reports and our everyday experiences as ove... more In this commentary, based on a close reading of media reports and our everyday experiences as overseas Chinese researchers, we examine the production of ignorance surrounding the COVID-19. Specifically, we focus on ignorance caused by selective inattention and power plays. We challenge the dominant dualistic frame of authoritarianism versus democracy and the role it plays in overly simplifying and even distorting the responses of Chinese authorities in handling this public health emergency. We maintain that this binary thinking is reflective of the conflation of orientalism, sinophobia and statephobia in the West, which also intersects with sexism and racism within and outside academic sites of knowledge production. The consequence is that knowledge accumulated by experts from China as well as other Asian countries about the virus and mitigation strategies are marginalised, discredited, distrusted, if not dismissed altogether.
In this commentary, based on close reading of media reports and our everyday experiences as overs... more In this commentary, based on close reading of media reports and our everyday experiences as overseas Chinese researchers, we examine the production of ignorance surrounding the Covid-19. Specifically, we focus on ignorance caused by selective inattention and power plays. We challenge the dominant dualistic frame of authoritarian versus democracy and the role it plays in overly simplifying and even distorting the responses of Chinese authorities in handling this public health emergency. We maintain that this binary thinking is reflective of the conflation of orientalism, sinophobia and statephobia in the West, which also intersects with sexism and racism within and outside academic site of knowledge production. The consequence is that knowledge accumulated by experts from China as well as other Asian countries about the virus and mitigation strategies are marginalised, discredited, distrusted, if not dismissed altogether.
For millions of Shanghainese on the lower rung of society, the history of the great urban transfo... more For millions of Shanghainese on the lower rung of society, the history of the great urban transformation in the city since the 1990s is written with their tears for the loss of their homes, communities and livelihood. In this paper, I argue for squatting as a straightforward, effective and potentially radical strategy to redress the displacees' suffering, to take a more active and progressive control of the violent accumulation process and to challenge the hegemonic discourse of private homeownership that underpins the rapid transformation of Shanghai's urban landscape. The argument is built upon an in-depth study of a family evicted by the World Expo 2010 and squatted in a resettlement apartment. Their framing of justice and entitlement, embedded in local cultural and moral universes, not only lends legitimacy to their squatting but also mobilises popular sympathy, both of which are conducive to effective resistance.
Shanghai lost their homes to the World Expo 2010 and unravels the material and symbolic violence ... more Shanghai lost their homes to the World Expo 2010 and unravels the material and symbolic violence involved in shaping the experiences of unmaking and remaking a home. In doing so, this paper challenges the category of " happy " or " willing " displacees that deliberately, or unintendedly, conceals the perversity of displacement and legitimatizes it as natural or even politically and morally good. It joins the urgent call for treating displacees with greater respect and dignity and for reconsidering our political responsibility given the belated nature of domicide effects.
This paper examines the lived experiences of property dispossession caused by the World Expo 2010... more This paper examines the lived experiences of property dispossession caused by the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai. Specifically, it examines an overlooked category of family in the existing literature and probes into the political production of family conflicts and breakdowns. It characterizes the prevailing regime of dispossession in contemporary China as decentralized legal authoritarianism and argues that the organization of the Expo-induced dispossession deviates from this by the distinctive state structures. For this reason, tensions within the state apparatus were temporarily suspended, meaning reduced opportunity for resistance. State monopoly in symbolic production rendered contesting claims to property ownership illegitimate and made monetary compensation the only option, which turned confrontation with the state into domestic disputes. Organized as a state-led project, dispossession also exploited displacees' past experiences of a 'caring' state or state terror, giving rise to different attitudes towards displacement and thus causing family disputes. Moreover, mobilization of the entire state apparatus also permitted the use of coercive and violent means without legal and moral concerns. Tactics that manipulated, and in some cases completely severed, the relations within and beyond the displaced families are explored in depth. The paper concludes with a call for changing the ways that dispossession has been conceived and conducted in research and practice.
This article examines the securitization of land development rights under the dipiao scheme in Ch... more This article examines the securitization of land development rights under the dipiao scheme in Chongqing, China. It argues that this instrument is based on the dispossession and exploitation of rural households but these unequal relations have been concealed and naturalized through the complex geographies and temporalities of dispossessory arrangements, financing mechanisms and discursive tactics. By overcoming political barriers to land commodification and dispossession in this way, the Chongqing government has expanded the frontier of commodifiable land and sustained a land-based, urban-centric and debt-financed accumulation. Instead of narrowing the urban-rural divide, this instrument reproduces and solidifies it. On this basis, the article argues that conceptual and political innovations for inclusive and equitable development needs to shift the attention from land to people.
Zusammenfassung Für Millionen Bewohner Schanghais in den niedrigeren Rängen der Gesellschaft schr... more Zusammenfassung Für Millionen Bewohner Schanghais in den niedrigeren Rängen der Gesellschaft schreibt sich die Geschichte der großen urbanen Transformation der Stadt seit den 1990er Jahren mit den Tränen um den Verlust ihrer Wohnun-gen, Nachbarschaften und Existenzgrundlagen. In diesem Beitrag begründe ich Hausbesetzungen als einfache, wirkungsvolle und potenziell radikale Strategie, um das Leid der aus ihren Wohnungen vertriebenen Menschen zu überwinden, um den gewaltsamen Akkumulationsprozess aktiver unter Kontrolle zu bringen und um dem hegemonialen Diskurs über Wohnungseigentum, der die rasche Veränderung im Stadtraum Schanghais unter-mauert, entgegenzutreten. Die Argumentation gründet sich auf eine eingehende Fallstudie einer Familie, die durch die Weltausstellung 2010 aus ihrer Wohnung vertrieben wurde und daraufhin eine Umsetzungswohnung besetzte. Deren Auffassung von Recht und Anrecht, die auf lokal bestehenden kulturellen und moralischen Vor-stellungen beruht, verschafft ni...
This article examines the Chinese government's ongoing controlled experiment to empower rural com... more This article examines the Chinese government's ongoing controlled experiment to empower rural communities and revitalise rural spaces through the fictitious commodification of rural collective operational construction land (i.e., land used for commercial or operational businesses). We show how local governments in Pidu, one of the selected experiment sites, exploited the political opening to pursue their own landed interests and, in doing so, continued to exploit and marginalise rural communities. The competing interests of local and central governments in rural land commodification-combined with the ambiguous regulatory framework for this type of rural land and the overall conditions of the land market-frustrated the complete and effective commodification of such land. Broadening these lessons to experiments in general, we suggest that effective monitoring mechanisms centring processual and distributional justice are needed to keep experiments in check and realise their potential in bringing about positive changes.
This article examines the hitherto overlooked temporal politics and resultant injustice in theori... more This article examines the hitherto overlooked temporal politics and resultant injustice in theorizing urban transformations in China. Through a micro-level, in-depth case study of the lifespan of Guangling New City, it unravels the complex and at times conflicting ways in which different temporal dimensions of this mega project were manipulated, exploited and experienced. In particular, it unravels the organization of, and the divisions within, the dominant elites, and illustrates how their conflicting and changing interests in time shaped the trajectory of the new city project. Residents caught up in the urbanization process were not completely opposed to the dominant project temporalities. Some of them submitted partially to project promises and visions; whereas others had gained some marginal degree of control over project temporalities, both of which contradictorily reproduced their submission to dominant interests and power in the urban development game. Time thus played a critical role in enabling and sustaining land-based accumulation, despite injustice therein. On this basis, this article calls for a more grounded approach to bring out the messy and contradictory temporal politics of urban development in order to improve the planning and delivery of megaprojects.
Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 2020
In this commentary, based on a close reading of media reports and our everyday experiences as ove... more In this commentary, based on a close reading of media reports and our everyday experiences as overseas Chinese researchers, we examine the production of ignorance surrounding the COVID-19. Specifically, we focus on ignorance caused by selective inattention and power plays. We challenge the dominant dualistic frame of authoritarianism versus democracy and the role it plays in overly simplifying and even distorting the responses of Chinese authorities in handling this public health emergency. We maintain that this binary thinking is reflective of the conflation of orientalism, sinophobia and statephobia in the West, which also intersects with sexism and racism within and outside academic sites of knowledge production. The consequence is that knowledge accumulated by experts from China as well as other Asian countries about the virus and mitigation strategies are marginalised, discredited, distrusted, if not dismissed altogether.
In this commentary, based on close reading of media reports and our everyday experiences as overs... more In this commentary, based on close reading of media reports and our everyday experiences as overseas Chinese researchers, we examine the production of ignorance surrounding the Covid-19. Specifically, we focus on ignorance caused by selective inattention and power plays. We challenge the dominant dualistic frame of authoritarian versus democracy and the role it plays in overly simplifying and even distorting the responses of Chinese authorities in handling this public health emergency. We maintain that this binary thinking is reflective of the conflation of orientalism, sinophobia and statephobia in the West, which also intersects with sexism and racism within and outside academic site of knowledge production. The consequence is that knowledge accumulated by experts from China as well as other Asian countries about the virus and mitigation strategies are marginalised, discredited, distrusted, if not dismissed altogether.
For millions of Shanghainese on the lower rung of society, the history of the great urban transfo... more For millions of Shanghainese on the lower rung of society, the history of the great urban transformation in the city since the 1990s is written with their tears for the loss of their homes, communities and livelihood. In this paper, I argue for squatting as a straightforward, effective and potentially radical strategy to redress the displacees' suffering, to take a more active and progressive control of the violent accumulation process and to challenge the hegemonic discourse of private homeownership that underpins the rapid transformation of Shanghai's urban landscape. The argument is built upon an in-depth study of a family evicted by the World Expo 2010 and squatted in a resettlement apartment. Their framing of justice and entitlement, embedded in local cultural and moral universes, not only lends legitimacy to their squatting but also mobilises popular sympathy, both of which are conducive to effective resistance.
Shanghai lost their homes to the World Expo 2010 and unravels the material and symbolic violence ... more Shanghai lost their homes to the World Expo 2010 and unravels the material and symbolic violence involved in shaping the experiences of unmaking and remaking a home. In doing so, this paper challenges the category of " happy " or " willing " displacees that deliberately, or unintendedly, conceals the perversity of displacement and legitimatizes it as natural or even politically and morally good. It joins the urgent call for treating displacees with greater respect and dignity and for reconsidering our political responsibility given the belated nature of domicide effects.
This paper examines the lived experiences of property dispossession caused by the World Expo 2010... more This paper examines the lived experiences of property dispossession caused by the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai. Specifically, it examines an overlooked category of family in the existing literature and probes into the political production of family conflicts and breakdowns. It characterizes the prevailing regime of dispossession in contemporary China as decentralized legal authoritarianism and argues that the organization of the Expo-induced dispossession deviates from this by the distinctive state structures. For this reason, tensions within the state apparatus were temporarily suspended, meaning reduced opportunity for resistance. State monopoly in symbolic production rendered contesting claims to property ownership illegitimate and made monetary compensation the only option, which turned confrontation with the state into domestic disputes. Organized as a state-led project, dispossession also exploited displacees' past experiences of a 'caring' state or state terror, giving rise to different attitudes towards displacement and thus causing family disputes. Moreover, mobilization of the entire state apparatus also permitted the use of coercive and violent means without legal and moral concerns. Tactics that manipulated, and in some cases completely severed, the relations within and beyond the displaced families are explored in depth. The paper concludes with a call for changing the ways that dispossession has been conceived and conducted in research and practice.
This article examines the securitization of land development rights under the dipiao scheme in Ch... more This article examines the securitization of land development rights under the dipiao scheme in Chongqing, China. It argues that this instrument is based on the dispossession and exploitation of rural households but these unequal relations have been concealed and naturalized through the complex geographies and temporalities of dispossessory arrangements, financing mechanisms and discursive tactics. By overcoming political barriers to land commodification and dispossession in this way, the Chongqing government has expanded the frontier of commodifiable land and sustained a land-based, urban-centric and debt-financed accumulation. Instead of narrowing the urban-rural divide, this instrument reproduces and solidifies it. On this basis, the article argues that conceptual and political innovations for inclusive and equitable development needs to shift the attention from land to people.
Uploads
Papers by YUNPENG ZHANG
Drafts by YUNPENG ZHANG