The Floating Village: Fostering Social Capital in Chinese Migrant Settlements through Mobile Architecture

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Vincent Woon
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Informal Settlement ◽  
Floating Population ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Rural Migrants ◽  
Communal Area ◽  
Communal Space ◽  
Cultural Origins

<p>In the past two decades, China has realised one of the fastest and largest rural to urban migrations in the world. The country’s urban population has increased by 20% over the last 20 years due to rapid urbanisation and a drastic improvement in urban opportunities. It is projected that by the year 2020 China aims to house 60% of its population in urban areas, resulting in a population shift of over 100 million people. One of the major issues which is presented to rural migrants is the hukou system. Hukou acts as a domestic passport which prevents rural migrants from attaining social benefits within urban areas. This has created an underclass within China’s urban areas known as the “floating population”.  This thesis focuses on the architecture of the “floating villages” of China which accommodate this floating population. The floating village is an informal settlement of migrant workers which develops around construction sites. The village provides services such as food, entertainment, medical care and recycling to the construction workers., However, as a pseudo-urban typology accommodating many of the functions of a town, it lacks one important element: a focused communal area. The absence of deliberately designed a communal space has led to social tensions within the floating village due to the different cultural origins of the migrant workers. Migrant workers arrive in floating villages without knowledge of urban culture and with no communal support. Varying migrant accents, and traditions, alongside struggles with poverty, creates friction between workers.  This thesis proposes a temporary and portable architectural intervention within the floating village which fosters a positive community. The research of community design is explored through an architecturalisation of Dr Robert D. Putnam’s understanding of social capital.</p>

The Floating Village: Fostering Social Capital in Chinese Migrant Settlements through Mobile Architecture

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Vincent Woon
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Informal Settlement ◽  
Floating Population ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Rural Migrants ◽  
Communal Area ◽  
Communal Space ◽  
Cultural Origins

<p>In the past two decades, China has realised one of the fastest and largest rural to urban migrations in the world. The country’s urban population has increased by 20% over the last 20 years due to rapid urbanisation and a drastic improvement in urban opportunities. It is projected that by the year 2020 China aims to house 60% of its population in urban areas, resulting in a population shift of over 100 million people. One of the major issues which is presented to rural migrants is the hukou system. Hukou acts as a domestic passport which prevents rural migrants from attaining social benefits within urban areas. This has created an underclass within China’s urban areas known as the “floating population”.  This thesis focuses on the architecture of the “floating villages” of China which accommodate this floating population. The floating village is an informal settlement of migrant workers which develops around construction sites. The village provides services such as food, entertainment, medical care and recycling to the construction workers., However, as a pseudo-urban typology accommodating many of the functions of a town, it lacks one important element: a focused communal area. The absence of deliberately designed a communal space has led to social tensions within the floating village due to the different cultural origins of the migrant workers. Migrant workers arrive in floating villages without knowledge of urban culture and with no communal support. Varying migrant accents, and traditions, alongside struggles with poverty, creates friction between workers.  This thesis proposes a temporary and portable architectural intervention within the floating village which fosters a positive community. The research of community design is explored through an architecturalisation of Dr Robert D. Putnam’s understanding of social capital.</p>

scholarly journals Social capital and social trust in urban China

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yinxuan Huang
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Social Trust ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Urban China ◽  
Rural Migrants ◽  
Network Support ◽  
Urban Migrants ◽  
Social Network Support

Owing to the dynamics of internal migration and the hukou system, urban areas in China always consist of a four-tiered structure of urban locals, urban migrants, new urbanites and rural migrants. This paper aims to examine the differences among these four groups in terms of social capital and to explore how the association between social capital and social trust may vary across the four groups. Data are based on the 2014 China Labour-force Dynamics Survey. Our analysis of 7662 responses first indicates that patterns of social capital in the four urban groups appear to be largely distinct. Second, we find a clear rural–urban division in social trust in the Chinese city: rural migrants and new urbanites tend to be less trusting than urban locals and urban migrants. Among the aspects of social capital under consideration, social network support and neighbourhood attachment are associated with higher levels of social trust, whereas the effects of bonding and bridging civic organizations on social trust are relatively weak. However, these patterns indeed tend to vary across the four groups of urban residents in the cases of civic engagement and social network support. Consequently, these findings suggest that the interplay of individuals’ hukou identities and migration experiences in urban China has an important impact on their social connectedness, which also presents distinctive implications for social trust.

scholarly journals Risk Perception in the Construction Industry: Differences Between Italian and Migrant Workers Before and After a Targeted Training Intervention

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-71
Author(s):  
Federico Ricci ◽  
Giulia Bravo ◽  
Alberto Modenese ◽  
Fabrizio De Pasquale ◽  
Davide Ferrari ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Perception ◽  
Construction Industry ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Construction Workers ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Visual Tool ◽  
Occupational Risks ◽  
Linguistic Barriers ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Difference

We developed a visual tool to assess risk perception for a sample of male construction workers (forty Italian and twenty-eight immigrant workers), just before and after a sixteen-hour training course. The questionnaire included photographs of real construction sites, and workers were instructed to select pictograms representing the occupational risks present in each photograph. Points were awarded for correctly identifying any risks that were present, and points were deducted for failing to identify risks that were present or identifying risks that were not present. We found: (1) Before the course, risk perception was significantly lower in immigrants compared to Italians ( p < .001); (2) risk perception improved significantly ( p < .001) among all workers tested; and (3) after the training, the difference in risk perception between Italians and immigrants was no longer statistically significant ( p = .1086). Although the sample size was relatively small, the results suggest that the training is effective and may reduce the degree to which cultural and linguistic barriers hinder risk perception. Moreover, the use of images and pictograms instead of words to evaluate risk perception could also be applied to nonconstruction workplaces.

The State Connection in China's Rural-Urban Migration

2005 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 354-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei Guang
Keyword(s):  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
The State ◽  
Urban Migration ◽  
Migration Process ◽  
State Textile ◽  
Facilitative Role ◽  
Rural Urban Migration ◽  
Urban State

This study explores the role of China's rural local state-owned and urban state-owned units in its rural-urban migration process. Most studies on Chinese migration have focused on migrants moving from rural to urban areas through informal mechanisms outside of the state's control. They therefore treat the Chinese state as an obstructionist force and dismiss its facilitative role in the migration process. By documenting rural local states' “labor export” strategies and urban state units' employment of millions of peasants, this article provides a corrective to the existing literature. It highlights and explains the state connection in China's rural-urban migration. Labor is … a special kind of commodity. What we do is to fetch a good price for this special commodity. Labor bureau official from Laomei county, 1996 If we want efficiency, we have to hire migrant workers. Party secretary of a state textile factory in Shanghai, 1997

scholarly journals Can Social Capital and Psychological Capital Improve the Entrepreneurial Performance of the New Generation of Migrant Workers in China?

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 3964 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongyu Ma ◽  
Federico Topolansky Barbe ◽  
Yongmei Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Psychological Capital ◽  
Opportunity Recognition ◽  
Shaanxi Province ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Entrepreneurial Opportunity ◽  
Entrepreneurial Performance ◽  
Environment Perception ◽  
New Generation

The new generation of migrant workers may play a crucial role in boosting China’s rural economy. With the rise of knowledge economy and the advent of the information age, it is difficult for human capital and economic capital alone to gain advantages in entrepreneurship. Thus, the study of social capital and psychological capital becomes more prominent. Within this context, this paper explores the relationships among entrepreneurs’ psychological capital, social capital, and entrepreneurial outcomes for the new generation of migrant workers in the Shaanxi province. This study uses a quantitative research approach. Primary data were collected from 525 rural households in the Shaanxi province. A structural equation model is used to verify the association between social capital, psychological capital, and entrepreneurial performance. The psychological capital of the new generation of migrant workers is found to exert a more significant impact on their entrepreneurial opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial environment perception than social capital. Both entrepreneurial opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial environment perception of the new generation of migrant workers are conducive to the improvement of entrepreneurial performance. Nevertheless, the intermediary role of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition is more prominent than entrepreneurial environment perception.

Exploring Just Sustainability in Re-Blocking Intervention in a Johannesburg Informal Settlement

2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (5) ◽  
pp. 782-796 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olumuyiwa Bayode Adegun
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Informal Settlement ◽  
Informal Settlements ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Urban Housing ◽  
Material Distribution ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
Just Sustainability

Addressing intertwined socio-economic and environmental problems in informal urban areas underscores the need for just sustainability. The co-production of urban housing provides a useful domain to link issues related to sustainability with social and environmental justice. Using the example of an informal settlement re-blocking project, this paper shows how co-production as an approach might or might not promote principles ingrained in just sustainability. The study relied on data collected through semi-structured interviews with residents and key informants as well as transect walks within the settlement. The case shows that working towards just sustainability is not straight-forward. It demands efforts that navigate, with foresight rather than hindsight, the dynamics in multi-scalar contexts into which informal settlements are embedded. Social and institutional structures, processes and relationships producing and reproducing material distribution are crucial to entrenching the just sustainability praxis.

scholarly journals Measurement and Monitoring of Particulate Matter in Construction Sites: Guidelines for Gravimetric Approach

2022 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 558
Author(s):  
Ingrid Priscylla Silva Araújo ◽  
Dayana Bastos Costa
Keyword(s):  
Particulate Matter ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Experimental Methods ◽  
Sampling Techniques ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Gravimetric Sampling ◽  
Inform Decision Making ◽  
Experimental Sampling

Studies on particulate matter (PM) from construction activities are still at an early stage. Thus, there is still no consensus on standardized experimental methods for monitoring PM in construction sites, which impedes the advancement of knowledge on this subject. This work proposes guidelines for measuring and monitoring the concentration of suspended PM and the annoyance generated by sedimented particles on construction sites in urban areas. These guidelines aim to reduce the variability and uncertainties that exist during the PM sampling processes at construction sites. This study adopts a literature review strategy in order to update the available scientific literature based on empirical evidence obtained in experimental PM studies and relevant documents from government agencies. The proposed guidelines were applied in a study protocol for gravimetric monitoring PM and annoyance tracking generated by sedimented particles using sticky pads. As a result, this article details sampling techniques, procedures, and instruments, focusing on gravimetric sampling, highlighting their characteristics compared to other monitoring approaches. Additionally, it points out a series of parameters for the measurement and monitoring of PM. This paper seeks to support future researchers in this area, inform decision making for experimental sampling, and provide a benchmark for measuring and monitoring PM at construction sites.

scholarly journals Facebook, Polymedia, Social Capital, and a Digital Family of Indonesian Migrant Domestic Workers: A Case Study of The Voice of Singapore’s Invisible Hands

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-83
Author(s):  
Adriana Rahajeng Mintarsih
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Data Gathering ◽  
Transnational Migration ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Dominant Negative ◽  
Learning Space ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Migrant Domestic Workers

Rarely do female migrant domestic workers (MDWs) get a chance to narrate their own migration experience. Voice of Singapore’s Invisible Hands (or The Voice), which started as a literary community on Facebook, aims to reshape the dominant—negative—discourse on migrant workers, especially Indonesian MDWs, by providing access to their literary work. In a transnational migration setting, Facebook has been used as a tool to maintain people’s relations with their families and friends back home, as well as for making new friends. Connections gained between individuals become a form of social capital where people build social networks and establish norms of reciprocity and a sense of trustworthiness. In the early establishment of The Voice, Facebook helped its initiator gain social capital. Ultimately, this social capital benefts the community and its members. Over the course of The Voice’s development, other social media platforms, namely WhatsApp, Skype, and email, have been used in addition to Facebook because they offer a different set of features and affordances of privacy and frequency. This practice of switching from one media to another is an illustration of polymedia, in which all media operate as an integrated structure and each is defned in relation to other media. This study, which focused on the relation of Facebook, polymedia, and social capital in the context of The Voice, used integrated online and offine qualitative data-gathering methodologies. The study found that Facebook initially helped both the community, which began as a learning space for Indonesian MDWs who wanted to narrate their stories about their home and family, and its members in their efforts to reshape the negative dominant discourse on migrant workers. It was the affordances of polymedia, however, that paved the way for the formation later on of a digital family in which the members provide emotional support for each other, similar to what family and close friends do.

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