Disputed relocation and property development in Shanghai, 1990-2005

This dissertation research examines social conflicts over large-scale community displacement arising from capitalist property development beginning in the early 1990s in Shanghai, China. Using ethnographic, archival, and legal research methods, this research provides an in-depth analysis of residents' years-long opposition to forced relocation, through which they sought to assert claims of rights and interests in the context of China's still top-down property regime. It argues that two structural forces prevent a broader participatory movement from raising a fundamental challenge to the existing property development regime: the design and application of relocation law, and the state's power to exploit residents' fears of being accused as political subversives if they challenge the relocation process. These material and ideological forces act together to deflect residents' collective attempts to challenge the existing property regime and, instead, to channel opposition into a discussion of personal (i.e., individual) economic loss and its remediation through pecuniary compensation. This dissertation also examines how law and state supremacy serve to deter and deflect conflicts by providing a source of legitimation for the developmental forces driving disputed relocation. The research advances understanding of how urban China's spatial modernization policy has turned into a source of social unrest, which in turn has enhanced the development of a civil and rights-conscious society in China.