Suspension 2.0: Segregated Development, Financial Speculation, and Waiting among Resettled Peasants in Urban China

Since the late 2000s, many rural-to-urban migrants in China have lost their rural land to development plans, resettled in designated areas, and acquired formal urban residency. They stopped migrating, and have apparently ended their life of “suspension,” namely protracted mobility. While most existing research literature on this population foregrounds the issue of land dispossession, this article argues that, following resettlement, these former migrants’ lives can be more accurately characterized as a state of suspension instead of dispossession. Many resettled young adults, while having secured livelihood thanks to state compensation, are excluded from the technology- and capital-intensive developments to which they have lost their land. Some of these young people instead became petty speculators and rentier capitalists by liquidating their compensated assets through mortgages, private lending, rent, and other financial means. They are constantly waiting for the next investment opportunity and windfall gain. Although physically settled down and economically secure, they remain anxious and unsettled. They continue to orient their lives towards an elusive future rather than striving to transform the here and now, thus living in a state that I call “suspension 2.0.”

悬浮2.0： 中国城市安置农民的隔离式发展、金融投机以及等待

关键词：安置, 悬浮, 金融投机, 等待, 隔离式发展。

自本世纪第一个十年末以来，中国许多从乡村到城市的流动人口因为各种发展计划而失去了土地，他们在指定区域得到安置并获得了正式的城市居民身份。他们不再外出打工，并且显然也结束了生活的“悬浮”，也就是长期的流动状态。尽管大多数研究这部分人口的现有文献都突出了失去土地的问题，本文提出，对这些前流动人口被安置之后的生活更准确的描述应该不是被剥夺状态，而是一种悬浮。尽管有政府补偿带来的生计保障，很多被安置的年轻人却被他们为之失去土地的技术和资本密集型开发所排除在外。 作为替代，这些年轻人中有一些通过贷款、私人借贷、租金以及其它金融手段将政府补偿资产换成了现款，成为小投机商或者食利资本家。他们常年等待着下一个投资机会和收获意外之财。尽管身家安顿下来，经济上也有了保障，他们却保持着焦虑和躁动。他们继续将生活定位于难以捉摸的未来，而非致力于此时此地的改变，因此生活在一个我称之为“悬浮2.0”版的状态中。

Translated from English by Li Guo