Lived Space of Urban Development: The Everyday Politics of Spatial Production in Nanjing, China

Abstract

This article is about experiences of insecurity and the pursuit of resources in the midst of impending housing demolition in the city of Nanjing, China. How do everyday practices reproduce or contest spatial production of the neighborhood? How do residents articulate belonging in urban space? How does spatial production interact with social and cultural life in the neighborhood? Through an ethnographic study of the discourses and practices in an old city neighborhood in China, I find that residents construct their urban neighborhood community through social and cultural means by (1) building and maintaining relationships and (2) negotiating their right to the city. I use state propaganda, ethnographic field notes, and interview data to show how urban inhabitants create their city neighborhood. How residents create space in their neighborhood by building relationships and contesting the right to its resources illustrate their making sense of social belonging and conflicted experiences with urban renewal projects.

Interactions among Trialectic Spaces and Their Driving Forces: A Case Study of the Xisi Historical and Cultural Block in Beijing

“…According to some researchers, the subjects of representational spaces are divided into strong subjects and weak subjects. These two subjects resist each other [30]. Babere argues that representational spaces are dominant.…”

“Everybody’s Donghu”: Artistic Resistance and the Reclaiming of Public Space in China

“…The space of Donghu in this sense is closely integrated into residents' daily lives. Similarly to how Tynen (2018) describes the transformation of old Nanjing city, the statement from the residents of having "memories" regarding Donghu suggests that their imaginations "continue to fashion alternative definitions of value and social life outside the domination of capitalist spatial production" (p. 2). Thus the activists in the "Everybody's Donghu" project conduct spatial practices through performance to contradict the propaganda from the government and the developers and show the richness of life and the meanings to the local residents.…”

Should Uyghurs be considered an Indigenous people?

“…The Chinese state is currently implementing an intense campaign that is actively dispossessing Uyghurs of their communities, seeking to erase their culture, language, and identity, to depopulate them, and to subject them to mass internment and forced assimilation. Many of the scholars documenting this process have pointed out the striking similarities between these actions and those historically taken by other settler-colonial regimes against the Indigenous peoples they displaced (Byler 2021;Clarke 2021;Grose 2021;Roberts 2020;Tynen 2018). If the Uyghurs were to embrace indigeneity, this could highlight how their present plight is akin to the atrocities committed against other Indigenous peoples historically, providing a framework for solidarity with a vibrant and active global Indigenous peoples' movement that is relatively powerful within the United Nations system.…”