Bounded coexistence through constructed social integration: education-led peri-urban rural gentrification in Beijing

In response to rural decline, China has promoted rural revitalisation and urban-rural integration. Some peri-urban villages are undergoing land value appreciation, population inflows, and rural gentrification. Existing studies examine commuting, tourism, amenity migration and displacement outcomes, but pay less attention to how locals and newcomers build and negotiate relations in everyday village life, and how these relations relate to the forms and outcomes of rural gentrification. This paper addresses this gap through an education-led case of peri-urban rural gentrification in Beijing, extending social integration theory to explain local-newcomer relations under gentrification pressures. Drawing on longitudinal field engagement, participant observation and semi-structured interviews with 41 locals and newcomers since 2023, the study analyses constructed social integration across four dimensions and identifies three sets of mechanisms shaping this process: actor configurations and leadership coalitions, trust-based social networks and bridging resources, and institutions, rules, and tenure relations. The findings show that sustained interaction and cooperation coexist with persistent inequalities and selective displacement pressures, particularly among newcomer renters facing rising costs, tenure insecurity, and a changing social and commercial environment. The paper conceptualises the coexistence of sustained cooperation and persistent asymmetry as bounded coexistence. By identifying an education-led, peri-urban pathway of rural gentrification in China, it advances debates on variegated rural gentrification in the Global South and clarifies how integration can accompany rural revitalisation while coexisting with unequal capacities to participate, remain, and benefit.