The Nexus of Governance or Empowerment? Problematizing “Community” in Urban China

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel

Abstract

How does “community” emerge in contemporary China as a means to and a space for governing? The concept of community has been hotly debated. Community, as a spatial unit, has become an important nexus for the state to govern. On the other hand, community also serves as an important arena for civil society to burgeon. The multi-faceted vision and application of community require further examination. This panel attempts to problematize the idea and the spatiality of “community” that has enabled different techniques of neoliberal governing. We examine how different actors utilize community to draw boundaries and to assert power. Focusing on community, we aim to provide detailed insights into the complex field of urban communities.
This panel brings together four empirical studies on communities in which different social actors have attempted to re-shape dynamics of community governance. Yang Zhan examines how service projects in rural migrant settlements can generate a new type of disciplinary power through NGO- mediated interactions between middle-class citizens and rural migrants. Ling Han investigates the logic behind state’s implementation of social work to reform community service provision, and the process in which social work agencies are institutionalized in local communities. Zhiying Ma analyzes how the technique of enumeration has enabled the emergence of community mental health, and how community becomes a space for both welfare reconstruction and social surveillance. Finally, Yao Li explores dynamic interactions between government officials and community residents in environmental protests and the impacts of these protests on the state and the communities.

Area of Study

• China and Inner Asia

Session Organizers

• Ling Han, Stanford University

• Yao Li, University of Kansas

Chair

• Ketty A Loeb, University of Washington/ WSCRC

Individual Presentations

• Gifting as Governance: NGO Service Projects and the Formation of Disciplinary Power in Rural Migrant Communities in Contemporary China - Yang Zhan, Binghamton University

• Governing Social Stability: Professionalizing Community Service Provision and the Institutionalization of Social Work in Urban China - Ling Han, Stanford University

• Enumerating and Assembling the Social: Governing through Community Mental Health in Post-Socialist China - Zhiying Ma, University of Chicago

• Empowering Environmental Activism? Explaining Opposition to Waste Incinerators in China - Yao Li, University of Kansas

Discussant

• Lisa M. Hoffman, University of Washington, Tacoma