Spaces of Suspension: Construction, Demolition, and Extension in a Beijing Migrant Neighbourhood

Communities with large concentrations of migrants, who often live in makeshift and illegal housing, have been common on the margins of large cities in China since the 1980s. Why do so-called “urban villages” persist and even flourish despite repeated government crackdowns? By addressing this question, this article sheds light on a subtle dynamic of city making that has not been fully appreciated by scholarly literature and media reports that have focused on large-scale demolition and eviction in China’s rapid urbanization. Drawing from my two years of field research in Hua village, a community on Beijing’s fringes in line for land expropriation, I explore how multilateral negotiations between local residents (villagers), migrant tenants, the village committee, and municipal government led to a cyclical movement of temporary housing construction, demolition, and extension. The dynamics of recurring demolishment and reconstruction engendered spaces of suspension, which enabled migrants to enter the urban economy at a low cost. Such spaces, however, offered no formal protection or basis for developing lasting social relations, and always faced the prospect of being demolished, but nevertheless were constantly available and even expanding.

悬浮的空间：一个北京外来务工者社区的建造、拆迁和扩展

关键词：流动务工；城中村；拆迁；城市非正式性；城市建构。

自80年代起，在中国大城市边缘区域常见大量集中着外来务工者的社区，他们通常居住在临时搭造和非法的住房里。 为什么尽管政府反复打击， 所谓的“城中村”仍然会持久存在，甚至繁荣兴盛？ 本文通过解析这个问题，揭示了城市建构中一个微妙的维度，这是一直关注中国高速城市化过程中大规模拆迁和驱逐问题的学术研究和媒体报道都未能充分体察的。 根据我在华村–北京边缘一个土地即将被征用的社区—所进行的为期两年的田野研究， 我探讨了本地居民（村民）、外来务工租户、村委会以及市政府之间进行的多边谈判导致的一种临时住房建造、拆迁和扩充之间的循环运动。 反复进行的拆迁和重建的动态制造出悬浮的空间，促成了流动务工者以较低的成本进入城市经济。然而这种空间不提供任何正式的保护，或者可以发展持久的社会关系的基础，并且总是面对被拆迁的前景；尽管如此，它一直都存在着，甚至还在扩充之中。

Translated from English by Li Guo