Investigating how the process of gentrification influences local residents in Shanghai?

Lu, Wenchen 2024. Investigating how the process of gentrification influences local residents in Shanghai? PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

This Thesis studies a traditional Shanghai Lilong neighbourhood that has experienced state-led gentrification. All residents had moved out of their old houses by August 2020. This research mainly used semi-structured interviews and an autoethnographic method, adopting some of the researcher's personal experiences and feelings. The research aimed to explore how state-led expropriation affects residents’ lives originally lived in CLL and LWL. This thesis demonstrates that, first of all, although state-led expropriation improved the living quality of some residents, it also caused inconvenience as well as displacement in residents’ lives, especially vulnerable residents. Some residents resisted the government abusing power in the process of expropriation. In addition, state-led expropriation also negatively affected some residents’ emotions. This thesis contributes to the understanding of the social geography of displacement. It reveals that the positive and negative impacts of displacement are complexly intertwined and therefore should not be separated. State-led expropriation also enriches the understanding of chain displacement and indirect displacement. Secondly, state-led expropriation alienated extended family relationships by depriving residents of the old house, the physical and spiritual place that maintains extended family relationships. State-led expropriation also damaged extended family relationships by igniting conflict between extended family members. Such damage could be repaired to some extent because of kinship. This thesis adopts the perspective of violence to understand state-led gentrification, demonstrating that the government is not only the leader of expropriation but also dominates and affects residents’ lives and their family relationships through violence. Thirdly, state-led expropriation also alienated previous neighbourhood relationships of residents by depriving Lilong of a place where previous neighbourhood relationships were maintained. However, neighbourhood relationships among nail households became closer due to the state-led expropriation. After relocation, it is difficult for interviewees to build new neighbourhood relationships. This thesis enriches the understanding of neighbourhood space, that is, neighbourhood space is not only a place where community residents live together but also a bond for residents to jointly resist the state-led structural violence in the process of state-led gentrification. Fourth, residents’ destinations were determined by the housing compensation method they chose. For residents who chose cash compensation, their considerations and decisions included not only compromise but also seeking to maximise their interests. Residents who chose government resettlement housing in the outer suburbs also pursued maximisation of interest while comprehensively considering these factors such as distance from the city, surrounding living facilities, and their financial conditions, making compromises to choose suburban resettlement housing. Residents who chose any housing compensation method demonstrated resilience. Ultimately, different places of residence determined residents’ different life experiences. Finally, state-led expropriation made some residents, especially those who have been negatively affected, more likely to recognise the essence of state-led expropriation as gentrification, even though they have never heard of the word gentrification. Some residents also believed that the expropriation promoted by the government has the ideology of urban revanchism. This study recognises the importance of ordinary voices through residents’ critical awareness of gentrification. In summary, this thesis illustrates how state-led gentrification affects residents' lives, emotions, family relationships, neighbourhood relationships, and their actual housing compensation methods. As a case study of state-led gentrification in the global East, its commonality and particularity can not only further enrich the concepts and theories of state-led gentrification in the global East, but also reconceptualise, challenge, and pay tribute to the concepts and theories of classic gentrification in the global North, as a contribution to planetary gentrification.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Geography and Planning (GEOPL)
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > G Geography (General)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Gentrification, local residents, Shanghai, displacement, family relationships, neighbourhood relationships, methods of housing compensation, awareness of gentrification, and ordinary voice
Funders:	self
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	23 October 2024
Last Modified:	06 Nov 2024 09:38
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/173244

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