Reshaping China’s Urban Citizenship: Street Vendors, Chengguan and Struggles over the Right to the City

TY - JOUR

T1 - Reshaping China’s Urban Citizenship: Street Vendors, Chengguan and Struggles over the Right to the City

AU - Swider, Sarah

PY - 2015/7/11

Y1 - 2015/7/11

N2 - This article examines spatial politics involved with the remaking of urban citizenship across Chinese cities. China’s emerging urban citizenship is shaped by its hukou system, which not only spatially and socially segregates rural migrants and urban natives in the cities, but also creates a large group of unregistered or ‘illegal’ migrants. This case study of unregistered migrant street venders looks at the implications of their unregistered status and how it has changed over time, shifting from creating benefits to becoming a burden. I capture how unregistered migrants’ lack of status has increasingly become an important basis of exclusion, and a burden, as they are denied access to new legitimate avenues of claims-making such as NGOs, courts and arbitration. This helps explain the increasingly common, and intensifying, clashes between migrant street vendors who are struggling for a right to the city and the chengguan, public security officers who are charged with regulating the streets.

AB - This article examines spatial politics involved with the remaking of urban citizenship across Chinese cities. China’s emerging urban citizenship is shaped by its hukou system, which not only spatially and socially segregates rural migrants and urban natives in the cities, but also creates a large group of unregistered or ‘illegal’ migrants. This case study of unregistered migrant street venders looks at the implications of their unregistered status and how it has changed over time, shifting from creating benefits to becoming a burden. I capture how unregistered migrants’ lack of status has increasingly become an important basis of exclusion, and a burden, as they are denied access to new legitimate avenues of claims-making such as NGOs, courts and arbitration. This helps explain the increasingly common, and intensifying, clashes between migrant street vendors who are struggling for a right to the city and the chengguan, public security officers who are charged with regulating the streets.

U2 - 10.1177/0896920514529676

DO - 10.1177/0896920514529676

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0896-9205

VL - 41

SP - 701

EP - 716

JO - Critical Sociology

JF - Critical Sociology

IS - 4-5

ER -