Violence as development: land expropriation and China's urbanization

A review of the literature on expropriation violence in China shows that most analysts explain violence instrumentally, as a means by which competing actors attempt to capture, redistribute or defend income from land development, an indicator of different spatial political ecologies, or a catalyst of villagers' politicization. But these explanations of violence assume (1) antagonism between rational, unitary collective actors and (2) that violence is of limited temporal duration, spatial and social reach. This paper builds on Escobar's proposition that violence is constitutive of development, to argue for an alternative view: violence authorizes and constitutes an inclusive, ongoing project of urbanization in China. Violence authorizes development, because the rural spaces surrounding cities and towns are characterized as institutionally insecure, disorderly, economically under-productive and incompatible with modernity. It comprises development, because it involves the forced urban improvement of the nation, rural property, governance, people and livelihoods. The concluding section of the paper briefly demonstrates the generalizability and analytical and methodological utility of the concept of violence as development by applying it to three ‘most different’ cases of land expropriation in China.