Rural migrants in villages-in-the-city in Guangzhou, China: Multi-positionality and negotiated living strategies

Urban Studies ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (10) ◽  
pp. 2245-2260 ◽  
Author(s):  
H Chung

This paper investigates rural Chinese migrants’ agency through their multi-positionality and negotiated living strategies. The idea of ‘multi-positionality’ conceptualises a migrant’s mobility between physical locations and shifting social positions. Through individual migrants’ multi-positionality, this study discusses their place-specific social relations and thereby the diverse way to negotiate a living in villages-in-the-city in Guangzhou, China. These strategies include simple approaches such as facilitating physical movements between different locations and more sophisticated ones which develop multiple roles with outsiders and native villagers in different localities. While the former allows individual migrants to use their local knowledge to make a living in the context of institutional exclusion and discrimination, the latter further cultivates changes and an upgrade in social relations. Rural migrants' everyday stories are used to unfold an individual’s particular people–place relationship and how he/she has tapped into a place-specific resource to make a living. It does not aim to generalise rural migrants’ experience; rather it seeks to show diversity and complexity. Migrants’ stories are collected through extensive research in a village-in-the-city in Guangzhou, China. Through these stories, not only does this paper articulate the social relations which underlie individual migrants’ shifting positions, but also extends translocal studies on migrants beyond the narrative of physical locations.

2020 ◽  
Vol 170 ◽  
pp. 06019
Author(s):  
Rukhsana Badar ◽  
Sarika Bahadure

The global cities of the world are witnessing a visible disconnection of everyday life. In India the Smart City guidelines acknowledge the need to counter the growing social detachment and intolerance by encouraging interactions. They go further in identifying that preserving and creating of open spaces must be a key feature of comprehensive urban development. Most social relations are cemented within open spaces at the neighbourhood level. Previous studies examine the association between the attributes of neighbourhood open spaces and social activity but neglect to view the issue comprehensively. The present study turns to Lefebvre’s Unitary Theory which states that open space is a result of three forces; 1) perceived space which is the physical dimension and material quality identifiable by the senses; 2) conceived space created by planners and other agents as plans and documents; and 3) lived space which is shaped by the values attached and images generated through user experience. For open space conducive to social interactions these three aspects must work in tandem. With this consideration a framework of criteria and indicators is developed and used to measure and compare the open spaces in select neighbourhoods in Europe and India. The investigation thus reveals differences in all three aspects of neighbourhood spaces. It also reveals a discrepancy between the planning standards formulated and employed by the city authorities in providing the spaces and the actual needs of the community. The research aims to address this gap. The study of the Indian cases lays foundation for the use of the framework to measure open spaces in association with social cohesion and thereby contribute to the enhancement of the social infrastructure of the City.


PMLA ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 131 (2) ◽  
pp. 496-504
Author(s):  
Anjali Prabhu

In his fascinating study of accra, ato quays0n quickly alerts his reader to the idea that one must not separate ways of knowing shakespeare from ways of knowing Accra. “Reading” the city as a literary critic, but much more, Quayson gives a discursive framework to his historical account of the material, social, and esoteric life of the city. Underlying the text is an implicit argument with other prominent accounts of African cities, which take a more utopian view and present these cities as mapping the innovative, exciting, and creative possibilities of urban space for the rest of the world. Quayson's mode of history is explicitly linked to storytelling in a number of ways beyond his disclosure that “[t]he retelling of Accra's story from a more expansive urban historical perspective is the object of Oxford Street” (4). From the start, it is also clear that his approach will utilize a broadly Marxian framework, which is to see (city) space in terms of the built environment as well as the social relations in and beyond it: “space becomes both symptom and producer of social relations” (5). But ultimately Quayson's apprehension of his city is Marxian because it recuperates ideas, desires, and creativity from the realm of the unique or inexplicable, of “genius,” to effectively insert them into various systems of production or into spaces that lack them. In so doing Quayson enhances, not hinders, our appreciation of those forms of innovation. Also Marxian is his employment of the “negative,” which refers to the way he splits apart many of the accepted relations between things in the scholarship on the development of the city, the postcolonial African city in particular, and pushes beyond the evidence of the “booming” or “creative” city. Quayson thus binds a more philosophical method of reasoning to his analysis of urban social relations while he straddles different disciplines. His work is illuminated when we locate a personal impulse, which we will track through the autobiographical narrative, to intervene not just in the ways the city is understood but also in the ways it is actually developing.


Urban History ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 642-642
Author(s):  
CARRIE RENTSCHLER

ABSTRACTThis essay examines a body of films that represent and re-enact the infamous 1964 Catherine Genovese rape and murder, helping to define the crime as a problem of bystander non-intervention exacerbated by urban living conditions and the ‘high rise anxieties’ of apartment dwellers. The moving image culture around the Genovese case tells a story about male violence against women in the city through the perspective of urban apartment dwellers, who are portrayed as bystander witnesses to both the city and to the social relations of stranger sociability in the city. Films depict the killing of Kitty Genovese, sometimes through fictional analogues to her and the crime, as an outcome of failed witnessing, explicating those failures around changing ideas about urban social relations between strangers, and ways of surveilling the city street from apartment windows. By portraying urban bystanders as primarily non-interventionist spectators of the Genovese rape and murder, films locate the conditions of femicide and responsibility for it in detached modes of seeing and encountering strangers. By analysing film as forms of historic documentation and imagination, as artifacts of historically and contextually different ways of telling and revising the story of the Genovese murder as one of bystander non-intervention in gender violence in the city, the essay conceptualizes film and filmic re-enactments as a mode of paying witness to the past.


2018 ◽  
pp. 33-50
Author(s):  
Elaine Lynn-Ee Ho

Analyzing emigration, immigration, and re-migration concurrently, under the framework of contemporaneous migration, directs us toward evaluating what it means to stake claims to different components of citizenship in more than one political community across a migrant’s life course. This chapter examines the way the Mainland Chinese migrants negotiate social reproduction concerns that extend across international borders, their multiple national affiliations, and aspirations for recognition and rights as they journey between China and Canada across the life course. Patterns of re-migration are transforming the social relations of citizenship, re-spatializing rights, obligations, and belonging. Source and destination countries are also reversed during repeated re-migration or transnational sojourning. Transnational sojourning forges citizenship constellations that interlink how migrants understand and experience citizenship across different migration sites.


Author(s):  
Fulong Wu ◽  
Zheng Wang

The seminal works by Park and the Chicago school of sociology are of great value for studying a rapidly urbanising China characterised by the decline of the formerly socialist structure and the increasing commodification of services and housing. Their assertion that the industrial organisation of cities has substituted primary and neighbourhood relations with secondary relations characterised by anonymity and utilitarianism also resonates with the rising middle-class population in China. However, our chapter contends that certain population groups have not followed the trajectory of change described by Park but instead continue to rely on primary and local social relations due to interventions of the Chinese state. Our argument is supported by a discussion on the varying social relations in Chinese urban neighbourhoods and specifically on the social life of rural migrants in the urban Chinese society.


Author(s):  
Sandro Brito Ferreira ◽  
José Queiroz de Miranda Neto

THE URBAN DISPERSION IN THE METROPOLITAN AREA OF BELÉM-PA: an analysis from the residential settlements on Mosqueiro IslandLA DISPERSIÓN URBANA EN EL ÁREA METROPOLITANA DE BELÉM-PA: un análisis de los asentamientos residenciales en la isla del MosqueiroRESUMOEste artigo tem como objetivo analisar a dispersão metropolitana de Belém, tendo como recorte empírico o distrito administrativo de Mosqueiro, espaço suburbano tradicionalmente utilizado como espaço de lazer. A Ilha de Mosqueiro, como também é conhecida, passa por importantes redefinições ligadas à influência metropolitana, sobretudo a partir da instalação de novos assentamentos residenciais. No presente trabalho, parte-se da ideia de que a dispersão metropolitana é produto e condição da reprodução das relações sociais de produção do capital em uma escala geográfica mais ampla, pois é na metrópole que se encontra boa parte das condições objetivas de realização do trabalho. Como resultados, entende-se que a dispersão da metrópole de Belém ocorre por razões outras que não se explicam, em princípio, apenas pela lógica formal de acumulação do capital imobiliário. Para tanto, o recorte espacial considerado é Mosqueiro que, embora faça parte da área de expansão do município de Belém, não foi afetado pela ação direta das empresas imobiliárias que atuam nos municípios da RMB e pelas políticas habitacionais do Estado, agentes responsáveis pela expansão da fronteira urbano-imobiliária. Há, portanto, uma expansão que ocorre por meio de formas não integralmente capitalistas de produção imobiliária.Palavras-chave: Dispersão Metropolita; Belém; Ilha de Mosqueiro.ABSTRACTThis article aims to analyze the metropolitan dispersion of Belém, having as empirical cut the administrative district of Mosqueiro, a suburban space traditionally used as leisure space. Mosqueiro Island, as it is also known, undergoes important redefinitions linked to the metropolitan influence, especially since the installation of new residential settlements. In the present work, one starts from the idea that the metropolitan dispersion is product and condition of the reproduction of the social relations of production of the capital in a wider geographic scale, since in the metropolis one finds a good part of the objective conditions of accomplishment of the work. As results, it is understood that the dispersion of the metropolis of Bethlehem occurs for other reasons that are not explained, in principle, only by the formal logic of accumulation of real estate capital. To do so, the spatial reduction considered is Mosqueiro, which, although it is part of the expansion area of the city of Belém, was not affected by the direct action of the real estate companies operating in the municipalities of the RMB and by the housing policies of the State, agents responsible for the expansion of urban-real estate frontier. There is, therefore, an expansion that takes place through non-integrally capitalist forms of real estate production.Keywords: Metropolitan Dispersion; Belém; Mosqueiro Island.RESUMENEste artículo tiene como objetivo analizar la dispersión metropolitana de Belém, teniendo como recorte empírico el distrito administrativo de Mosqueiro, espacio suburbano tradicionalmente utilizado como espacio de ocio. La Isla de Mosqueiro, como también es conocida, pasa por importantes redefiniciones ligadas a la influencia metropolitana, sobre todo a partir de la instalación de nuevos asentamientos residenciales. En el presente trabajo, se parte de la idea de que la dispersión metropolitana es producto y condición de la reproducción de las relaciones sociales de producción del capital en una escala geográfica más amplia, pues es en la metrópoli que se encuentra buena parte de las condiciones objetivas de realización del trabajo. Como resultados, se entiende que la dispersión de la metrópoli de Belém, ocurre por razones otras que no se explican, en principio, sólo por la lógica formal de acumulación del capital inmobiliario. Para ello, el recorte espacial considerado es Mosqueiro que, aunque forma parte del área de expansión del municipio de Belém, no fue afectado por la acción directa de las empresas inmobiliarias que actúan en los municipios de la RMB y por las políticas habitacionales del Estado, agentes responsables por la expansión de la vivienda fronteras urbanas-inmobiliarias. Hay, por lo tanto, una expansión que ocurre por medio de formas no integralmente capitalistas de producción inmobiliaria.Palabras clave: Dispersión Metropolitana; Belém; Isla de Mosqueiro.


2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Cahyo Pamungkas

This article is addressed to describe the social relations within the Papuan ethnic groups and between Papua native and migrants concerning some customary rights in Kaimana district. This research describes the struggle of inland and beach tribes in fighting for customary rights of land in Kaimana. Moreover, it captures the respond of migrants in dealing with the customary right. This study shows the recognition of the the eldest ethnic in Kaimana is a strategy and discourse constructed by Papua ethnic groups that have felt marginalized while migrants have taken their resources. This right could be understood as the need for recognition of Papua ethnic groups. The most important issue is not who the native of Kaimana is, but what the proper ways to give recognition to Papua ethnic groups which had been left behind in development are. The relation between the Papua natives and migrants in Kaimana is not complicated as the migrants have no privileges in the political contestation. However, these relationship are affected by the differences in religious affiliations. The Muslim Papua ethnic groups generally have a closer relationship with the Muslim migrants. The analytical framework of this study using the theoretical framework of identity and ethnicity to look at the issue. Does the definition of identity and ethnicity according to sociological theories are still relevant to understanding the issue of claims of ethnic identity in the city of Kaimana.


Author(s):  
Daniel Briggs ◽  
Rubén Monge Gamero

Valdemingómez, however, revolves around its own norms and codes which defy and violate conventional everyday conceptions of normative behaviour. This congregation of crime, violence and victimization in a spatial and legal no-mans land like Valdemingómez means that grave misdemeanours occur without consequences and violence is normalized part of the everyday fabric of social life. For this reason, in Valdemingómez almost anything goes and this produces a series of tensions in the social hierarchies that are attached to cultural interactions in the area which permeate elements of work and labour, the moral economy, daily life and social relations. In this chapter, we take a detailed look at the cultural milieu of Valdemingómez and its operations, and show how people survive there and how the various players attempt to foster some self-respect from these harsh realities.


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 215-249
Author(s):  
Carlos García Mac Gaw

Abstract This paper briefly examines the concept of the ancient mode of production as expressed in Karl Marx’s Formations. It looks at how twentieth-century Marxist historiography picks up this concept in its characterisation of the Greco-Roman city-state. It explores the feasibility of the use of the concept in relation to the advancement of knowledge of the city-state, especially through the development of archaeology. It examines how social classes are structured and relations of exploitation are presented. And it analyses the need for politics in the organisation of this socio-economic form in terms of how it is joined up with the social relations of production.


ILUMINURAS ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (36) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ângela Bezerra

A Mina Brejuí, situada no município de Currais Novos (RN), foi responsável pelo crescimento da economia local entre os anos de 1943 de 1990, atraindo uma mão de obra de mineradores para o núcleo urbano. Após o fim da extração da scheelita, a mina foi transformada em um “Parque Temático”, em 2004. A empresa imprimiu sua marca na cidade com a construção de monumentos que fazem referencia à atividade mineira e ao seu fundador Tomaz Salustino. No script da história oficial da Mina Brejuí, a figura do “patrão” se sobrepõe à dos trabalhadores e as formas de patronagem, oriundas do mundo rural, seguiram pontuando as relações sociais na mina. Convém então coletar as memórias dos mineradores e perguntar em que medida eles fazem referencia a esta história como integrantes. Hoje, com a retomada da atividade, é possível que renasça o desejo de fortalecimento da classe operária e da identidade mineira no sertão do Seridó. Palavras-chaves: Memória. Identidade. Identidade Mineira. Patrimônio.From labour to legacy: a study on the identity of the miners and the patrimonialization of the mina Brejuí in Currais Novos/RNAbstractThe Brejuí Mine, situated in the municipality of Currais Novos (RN), was responsible for the local economy growth between the years of 1943 and 1990, causing the interest of miner's working class to its urban center. After the end of scheelita extraction, the mine became a "theme park", in 2004. The company left its mark on the city by building several monuments in reference to the mining activity and the company's founder, Tomaz Salustino. In the script of the official history of the Brejuí Mine, the "boss" figure overlaps the workers and that the forms patronage, originated from the rural world, followed punctuating the social relations in the mine. Therefore, it is important to investigate the miner’s memories and ask in what extent to which workers make reference to this history as members. Today, with the resumption of the mining activity, it is possible that the strengthening of the working class and the Seridó miner identity desire reborn.Keyword: Memory. Identity. Mining Identity. Patrimony. 


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