Reviews for Strangers in the City: Reconfigurations of Space, Power, and Social Networks Within China's Floating Population

The average rating for Strangers in the City: Reconfigurations of Space, Power, and Social Networks Within China's Floating Population based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-02-01 00:00:00 Jason Schwab Here's a very detailed review/summary: Introduction: Purpose of the book as stated is to explain ethnographically how both state and society are reconfigured by increased marketization and mobility. Method of the book is empirical research on China's "floating population" of urban migrants. Thesis of the book is to explore how space, power, and identity-reformation intersect to reconfigure the state-society relationship in a period of increased spatial mobility and marketization. Summary: The author started her book with a very informative introduction that covered detailed information about the parameters of this book. She included definition of key words like "Governmentality", "Floating Population", and "Social space". In addition to her reasons to why she chose Beijing; seeing it's the capital, it has a special geopolitical, which affects the meaning and consequences of migration there. This allowed the author to discover the nature of this migrant community; it was constantly made and remade through political and economic struggles in space and time rather than natural, fixed and eternal place. She focused on Wenzhou, a migrant community. Then, she breaks down the meaning of the word Zhejiangcun; the first part is Zhejiang, which is the name of the province from which those migrants come. The second part is cun, which it's meaning vary however in this context it means village, which also signifies a sense of isolation and an out-of-place anomaly. It is interesting to note that most migrants do not like to be referred to by that label as it gives a sense of a few negative connotations such as: uncivil and dirty. In the first chapter, the author tries to simplify the way "Floating Population" came to exist and how they are seen as "internal aliens". Based on certain factors such as: economic capital and consumption power, migrants are able to reshape the meaning for the current available social categories while maintaining their own sense of self and where they belong socially. The history of migration: the first time peasant workers began to appear in cities was in the early 1980s. However, they were seen as a temporary phenomenon. The government's point of view and initial response was to block and repress it. The attempts to do so did not stop those migrations. Ironically, as the economic progressed, the need for those migrants increased. Migrant labor was needed fulfill low-end, dirty, dangerous jobs and develop the service sector. Those "floating population" varied from a large range of mobile people with different variety of migration experiences and lifestyles. They're divided by place of origin, economic status, occupation, consumption power, and relation to the means of production. Yet, there were two issues related to the "floating population": (i) their background demographically, economically, their mobility, speed of growth and spatial distribution, and (ii) their impact and the strategies needed to regulate the migrant population effectively. While those migrants cannot reject the imposed categorization, they are able to redefine the meaning of floating as a positive way of life and they were able to do that in more than one geographic. Moving on to the second chapter, Zhang looks deeply into the history of Wenzhou migrants and their roots. She observed that networks based on kinship ties placed a vital role in the maintaining and formation of the migratory flows to Beijing. The author's extended study of the history and schools of thought helped in explaining the formation of Zhejiangcun. Unfortunately, just as the migrant community started to mature, it faced the political aspect. However, migrants persisted and became one of the most prominent social actors in the local economy and its social space. In the third chapter, we are introduced to the concept of "clientelist ties". Through an examination of the Privatization of Space and the difficulty to obtain housing for migrants, we are able to trace the production of a strange kind of migrant residential space (dayuan: translated as "big yard" or "big compound") and how this spatial construction had played an important role in reconfiguring power, social relationships, and collective identity in Zhejiangcun. Despite the resistance at the beginning to rent rooms to those migrants, local farmers realized that in reality its very profitable. For an outsider, migrants big yards and compounds appear to be closed and cut off from the outside world when in reality they are open and dynamic. Dayuan offered a lot of advantages like connections with local businesses and a place to stay yet they weren't very harmonious places. Multiple layers of social and economic tension existed. The following chapter discusses the concept of the Privatization of Power. Understanding migrant leadership is vital to understand the local control and the relationship between the state and the social space and how this social construction is reordering social and spatial relationships in this unofficial community. Through informal networks and other specific ways, popular migrant leaders organize social, economic and personal resources to establish their power, influence, and legitimacy in Zhejiangcun. The author identifies three kinds of migrant leaders: housing bosses, market bosses, and public activists. In addition to different social bases of power: extended kinship networks, bangs, and clientelist ties with officialdom. Those leaders were able to develop a spatial space with power by controlling their roles as power brokers while mediating between migrant communities and the political authority in the larger society. The author concludes this chapter by an analysis suggesting that it is a difficult task to control and regulate the floating population, and the lack of an officially recognized entity that can work between the state and the those migrants is the reason for the apparent tension. Anther significant change documented in this book and specifically in the fifth chapter is the change in the domain of gender and domestic relations among the Wenzhou migrants. Numerous studies in other cultural contexts have shown that economic development is not necessarily a liberating force for all women. Gender relations in Zhejiangcun vary differently by household and class status; women in wealthy households become trapped. The author's observation of men and their extramarital activities and how most men view that was very troubling to me personally. Contesting crime and order: chapter six. While in every community there are crimes and violence, in the migrant communities it was worse because these communities are constructed as a high crime group and to a certain extend a social anomaly and therefore discriminated. In late 1995, the official campaign to "clean up and reorder" Zhejiangcun resulted in the removal of 40,000 migrants from Beijing, which ultimately resulted in the demolition of Zhejiangcun in November. Many felt forced to relocated and start over all over again. 16 months later, in January 1998 the author visited again and was surprised by the new developments of markets and communities. It was amazing and rewards for her to see the community rebuilt and expanded. Critical Analysis: My knowledge of China is limited to its external affairs. The "Integrating Rising Powers: Liberal systematic theory and the mechanism of competition" by Quddus Snyder tried to explain China's decision to integrate with the liberal commercial world order. Therefore, my understanding of the Chinese domestic affairs is close to none. However, my close relationship to a Chinese international student intrigued my interest to know more about his country and hence my choice to read this book. Additionally, the fact that my thesis is about globalization and media and the role they both play. While it turned out that this is not directly related to my thesis, the book's premise is about the "floating population" that is a result of global capitalism and a by-product of economic reform. According to the author, she has built personal ties with the communities there -she claims that this was the only way she could have been able to conduct her interviews and do her research. However, her author's relationship with the migrants -at least in this situation- appears to be a good tactic. It gave a more detailed, accurate presentation of the migration life in Beijing. The organization of the book starting from the introductory chapter to the conclusion helped in building the author's case and follows her train of thought smoothly. The author might have used an excessive amount of stories, which can be either entertaining or boring. I understand that the nature of the topic of this book requires some story telling. I appreciated the author's efforts to explain all terms (she would add the meaning of certain words between brackets), even though she did include a glossary at the end of the book. Her use of maps, diagrams and pictures was very engaging as well. The author was very generous in her descriptions of places where migrants lived and where she met with them. At times it was hard to remember that I was reading rather an academic book than a story. The author claims that she spent 18 months and conducted over 110 interviews with migrants; this amount of time and work can only show her dedication to the topic. I have to say I was rather impressed. The fact that she was a holder of a Chinese passport and an American permanent residency card made it difficult at times as she wasn't a real foreigner nor a true Chinese, which in a way made her fee like a floater herself (ironic!). Adding to that, the timing of her fieldwork was around the time of demolishing those migrant communities, which made the author's research seem political. Yet she remained objective throughout her book. There were parts of the book where it seemed too complicated to understand and the fact that I'm a foreigner might have to do with it. In those parts it was a bit hard to stay interested as well. The author seems to have focused on the insides of those communities without giving much examination to the outside world of these communities such as the Chinese government. Conclusion: "Strangers in the City" that is an attention grabber indeed. Additionally, the author's use of words and their multiple meanings depending on the context was a great help to understand the exact context intended to discuss. Her extensive study on the floating population and migrants in China is very detailed and informative. Not to mention the invaluable findings of space, power and social networks that reshaped China's larger economic transformation and the political culture that were documented in this book. The level of study in this work is a micro level that covered the intricate workings of migrant communities ranging from: housing and power to gender inequality. It was a nice touch that the author took the photographs in the book herself; you could see the intimate relationship she had with those people. The author spent 18 months studying the community of Zhejiangcun, this is quite a lot however it paid off seeing how good this book is.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-03-30 00:00:00 Denise Deboer The state bureaucrat trying to serve his master by explaining why the irrational masses do what they do. Another chain link in the governmental armor.