Shanghai Gone: Domicide and Defiance in a Chinese Megacity (State & Society in East Asia)
Shanghai grew rapidly in the decades before the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949. The population continued expanding over the subsequent 30 years, but the housing stock did not: millions of residents occupied tiny spaces in deteriorating buildings. Since the 1990s, high rises and shopping centers have replaced most of those buildings. In the process, many people were forced out of their homes without what they considered adequate compensation. This book introduces victims of 'domicide' who fought back. Based on extensive interviews, five lively case studies explore the motivations and strategies of people who challenged the city's right to take away their beloved homes. Some petitioned government offices for redress, some studied housing law and filed suit, some tried to attract media attention, and some appealed to historic preservationists. Only one found satisfaction. The stories are told almost entirely from the point of view of the dispossessed homeowners; officials and developers declined to offer their perspectives. As the dispossessed are well aware, Shanghai's movers and shakers have made tremendous profits from its amazing real estate boom. This book gives voice to those who lost out.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.(CHOICE)An extraordinary book that documents the contemporary history of housing demolition and relocation in Shanghai. . . . As a historian, Qin Shao is extremely sensitive to historical details and pays particular attention to the oral history of the everyday experiences of those residents who suffered from housing demolition. She turns these narratives into an account of conflict and resistance in the histories of urban development. . . . The book contains very rare and detailed materials and reveals the enormous suffering caused by 'domicide'—the eradication of homes against the will of their dwellers—in the process of rapid urbanization and housing development. The book devotes its narrative to concrete events and the words of ordinary people, and preserves memories that would otherwise disappear quickly along with the old homes. . . . The narrative of this book is full of surprises—even for those who believe they are 'familiar' with Chinese cities. . . .Shanghai Goneis an extremely fascinating book for those who are interested in Chinese cities as well as the general public interested in urban histories and social well-being.(China Quarterly)The book discusses the life and struggle of Shanghai's displaced, whose life courses have been abruptly changed by city-wide redevelopment projects. Facing the almighty power of the state, developers, media, and so on, the displaced are transformed from ordinary residents to occupational petitioners, a barrack-room lawyer, or a community leader. The rights discourse spelled out by these people also provides a fascinating insight for our understanding on how the interaction between reform measures (economic, political, and legal) and people's response to these have reshaped their rights awareness and views on social justice.(Urban Commune)This book is characterized by its informative first-hand data derived from field investigations made over several years. . . . The book successfully conveys the passions of diverse people (particularly those evicted from their dwellings) who display determination, courage, strength, wisdom and patience. This is a story of common people turned stubborn protesters/petition specialists, government officials, developers, media professionals and public intellectuals. This unfolding story is situated within a wider governance context: China’s housing, land use, juridical and petition systems, regulations relating to urban planning, demolition and relocation, and cultural heritage preservation, their effects, loopholes and historical dynamics.(Building Research & Information)Qin Shao offers, with remarkable detail, the struggles of evictees against commercial developers and the local government in Shanghai. Alternatively gripping and painful, thoroughly honest and, at times, impassioned and even humorous, Qin’s account provides the closest approximation available to a record of socio-legal cases or textual documentation of housing disputes in urbanizing China. . . . Qin’s book is a testament to tenacity in research methods and goals, just as it is to the struggles of her informants. It sets a bar for empirical fieldwork on political issues in contemporary China. Students and scholars of modern history, urban studies, law and society, and anthropology will find inShanghai Gonea vivid account of the best and worst in reform-era China.(China Information)Shanghai Goneis an extraordinary book—one that blends academic thoroughness and personal passion to yield a monumental study of Shanghai’s transformation, and, indeed, that of China more generally. The book is built around the gripping accounts of residents whose homes suffered the type of demolitions that have recast the face of Chinese cities. What is especially compelling are the ways in which ordinary citizens have sought to avail themselves of the law to defend their rights and interests.(William Alford, Harvard University)A devastating shadow biography that reveals this great city’s dark secrets. Qin Shao teaches us volumes about the powerful forces remaking Shanghai, through forced relocation and demolition of its old neighborhoods. What is even rarer, she has written a book that manages to be both beautiful and poignant, because she tells her story through the lives of real people.(Howard W. French, Columbia University; author, with Qiu Xiaolong, of Disappearing Shanghai: Photographs and Poems of an Intimate Way of Life)Shanghai Gone, an homage to a city that no longer exists, deftly weaves interviews with individuals and old-fashioned digging to provide a nitty-gritty look at how urban China is being reconstructed. This makes it more than a dirge; in fact, it is a paean to the fighting spirit of ordinary people across the country.(Ian Johnson, author of Wild Grass: Three Stories of Change in China)The lives of ordinary people trying to hang on to their homes and their dignity in the midst of China’s superheated urban development is the subject of Qin Shao’s by turns inspiring and disturbing study. Her insights into the interworking of state, economy, and culture will stimulate debate about the management of China’s megacities, while her vivid portraits of victims becoming petitioners and activists pin down abstractions of policy, citizenship, and social justice in concrete and unforgettable ways.(David G. Strand, Dickinson College)Shanghai Gonewas a huge hit in my class. This was manifest in the dynamic, excited series of discussions that we had about the work. My students loved it and were caught up in the poignant, devastating human dramas. They were engrossed by the complex interplay between private life and official life, all set against the backdrop of a shifting legal culture. Qin Shao has written an important, powerful book that reveals an aspect of contemporary life in China essential for grappling with the profound transformations underway in the twenty-first century.(Hugh Shapiro, University of Nevada)Put simply, if Shanghai is China’s face to the world, this book pulls off its mask to reveal the activities of powerful and unaccountable players in the city’s drive to modernity, as well as the human cost associated with it. . . .Shao’s book provides a rich texture complementing the canonical work on China’s urban transformation by authors such as Fulong Wu, Anne Broudehoux, or John Friedmann, to name but a few. Filling the gap in interpretive approaches to China’s complex and fascinating urban landscape,Shanghai Goneis a remarkable book that will interest both China-watchers and urban scholars, as well as those interested in protest and global civil society movements.(E-International Relations)