Using ethnographic data gathered in Beijing during 2017 and 2018, this article examines numerous urban population displacement events using the concept of spatial governance in order to understand the spatialization of governance in urban China. A particular focus of this article are the Beijing-wide displacements of the so-called “low-end population” that followed a fire in Xinjian Village in 2017. The analysis in this article uses geographic understandings of spatial informality to interrogate how space is made informal and subsequently illegal as a means of population control. The article puts forward the idea that spatial governance is one of the key forms, if not the key form, of governance in urban China. It highlights changes in governance that have resulted in space becoming not just a site for control, but the medium for techniques of control over China's urban population.

This paper contributes to the interdisciplinary fields of migration and mobilities through an examination of how translocal migrants engage in a variety of mobilities in order to practice long-term stillness in Beijing, China. To achieve this the paper proposes the concept of dynamic stillness, a stillness at one scale achieved through mobility at other scales. Dynamic stillness builds on other forms of (im)mobility, including turbulent stillness, waiting, suspension, immobility and emplacement. The concept returns agency to the non-mobile individual, agency that is lacking in other terms used to describe various (im)mobilities. This paper also conceptualizes mobility and stillness as taking place in both physical and digital sites, and it explores the role that digital sites, such as instant messaging groups, play in projects of stillness. Empirically, the paper explores unsuccessful attempts to displace translocal migrants engaged in food work in Beijing. While seemingly successful at first, when the analysis moves beyond simplistic snapshots of displacement and takes into account a variety of sites, scales and temporalities, the paper shows how dynamic stillness can be practiced at the scale of the sub-district by being mobile at other scales, including streets, neighbourhoods, across the nation state and to digital sites.

This paper conceptualizes digital displacement as both a way through which the digital, dynamic and fragile spatialities of contentious politics can be examined and as a geographic critique of censorship. Digital displacement, understood here as the act of removing users from the digital places and spaces they wish to remain in and use, often through the act of deletion, is conceptualised through the digital displacement of two contentious politica l groups that attempted to contest the forced eviction of migrants from Beijing in 2017; hashtag focused #BeijingSurgery# and instant messaging group using BeijingTogether. Explored through participant observation, interviews and playful digital exploration, this paper examine s the spatialities that made multiple digital displacements possible and the activist spatialit ie s that emerged during and post-displacement. In exploring this I develop a flexible vocabulary around digital place, space, scale, territory and mobility to analyse the practices of digita l displacement, to understand the socio-spatial positionality of activists involved in digita ll y centred contentious politics and to contextualize their territorial positionality within Chinese digital territory and global digital territories. Through the examination of #BeijingSurge r y# and BeijingTogether the article highlights: the importance of digital territorial positionality for both activists and the digital places and spaces used for contentious politics; that within systems of digital spatial governance deletion and displacement can be effective strategies of repressive governance with wide ranging displacement effects; and that while digital displacement is not necessarily the ending point of contentious politics the re-production of activist spatialities is more difficult when the authority being protested against governs the digital territory used for protest.This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as

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