Abstract
This paper presents multivocal exchanges between evictees and frontline demolition personnel regarding urban housing demolition in China. I discovered that evictees and evictors alike stick to the official rules but contest vigorously the interpretation, each in accordance with their tacit understanding of the norm of practising demolition and particular tactics of bending the rules of compensation. This paper provides a detailed, rarely available ethnographic record of the encounters between evictees and evictors, and contributes to the study of how agents strategise and interact within a habitus of micro-power relationships. It is concluded that the agency of various players is simultaneously reproducing the social structure but paradoxically working to sabotage the very structure within which they practice.
The problem we face now is a consequence and legacy of past unfairness, an unpleasant vicious circle. But it’s equally chaotic and untenable if everybody is to be treated equitably; such is our social reality. (Manager Niu, 40-year old)
Introduction
This is how the manager of a demolition and relocation (chaiqian) company described the stagnant situation of urban housing demolition when I conducted my fieldwork in a large Chinese municipality from July 2011 to June 2012.11 A combination of soaring property prices, experiences of previous demolition malpractices, and the ruling Communist Party of China’s resolve to create a ‘harmonious society’ is attributed to more stringent control over how demolition work should be conducted. Chaiqianhu (evictees) are well-aware of the country’s economic transformation from the principle of socialist distribution based on part entitlement and part discretion, to the new game of capitalist accumulation based on part market mechanism and part statist control.
Demolition personnel are now operating in a far less favourable environment in their attempt to convince evictees to accept government compensations. Evictees invariably harbour a local belief based on previous inequitable cases of demolition, out of which they developed a discursive, sarcastic re-understanding of the official policy dissemination, which posits that a different social reality is being conceived and reproduced. This underlies the belief no such thing as a fair procedure or equitable compensation exists where a demolition settlement is concerned. Evictees understand their asymmetrical power position, but many are willing to take it to the limit, as the cost of being taken advantage of through this opportunity of a lifetime is too high for a whole family to bear.
In China, officials have estimated between 2006 and 2011, clearance and construction work on urban and township shanty towns commenced that would benefit 10 million households but that left at least another 12 million to be resolved. Given that ‘urban renewal’ had become a pretext for commercialised residential projects (Shao 2013: 9), the number of to-be-affected evictee households is hardly determinable. In the literature of housing clearances elsewhere, various mixes of approach have been employed in different contexts, but without clear patterns of relationship. For instance, in Mumbai, India, the state plays pivotal role in creating and distributing land values through slum redevelopment (Mukhija, 2003: 5). In Almaty, Kazakhstan, the government has embarked on eradicating squatter outgrowth by simultaneous eviction and the discretionary formalisation of property rights (Yessenova, 2010: 41); whereas in the urban periphery of São Paulo, Brazil, there is a pervasive, concomitant process of illegal occupation and the legalising of illegal home ownership (Holston, 2008: 207). In contrast, in Hong Kong, formalisation of property rights has never been pursued in attempts to regulate illegally occupied spaces (Smart, 2001: 34). In each individual case, it is important to understand whether dwellers are invited to participate and protect their living and property rights, or are simply drafted to comply with the government directive and denied entitlement to their housing or property rights. In this regard, the present paper contributes to the understanding of a special case, whereby in principle only ‘legal’ property rights are endorsed as the basis for demolition compensation, but with the terms subject to discretionary interpretations and rigorous bargaining between evictees, demolition personnel, and government representatives.
Evictees’ forming a righteous moral discourse along with formulating a defensive tactic results in a complex relationship, hitherto unseen, between the populace and the Chinese local state. Urban housing demolition has become a mundane, everyday occurrence across all cities in China after welfare housing provisions had been completely phased out in 2003. Land expropriation and forced eviction is now regarded as the primary reason for people’s petition to the higher authorities. Amnesty International also points out that forced eviction represents a gross violation of China’s international human rights obligations on an enormous scale (2012: 4). A growing number of China-based legal scholars and sociologists (cf. Chen, 2010; Feng, 2004; Peng and Cheng, 2010; Shi, 2007; Xu and Huang, 2010) have made inquiries into this sensitive topic. In anthropology, Li Zhang (2001; 2004) has an exemplary study on an unusual, large scale demolition of a rural migrant community at the outskirt of Beijing, as well as an ethnographic account and overview on urban housing demolition; whereas Adam Chau (2008) has examined the widespread phenomenon of an awful, big character ‘chai’ (demolish) surrounded by a circle being painted on the walls, when a building structure is designated to be demolished. Nonetheless, detailed ethnographic studies are not common. In her accounts on housing demolition in Shanghai, China, historian Qin Shao (2013) addresses whether protesters are ‘rights conscious’ or ‘rule conscious’, but concludes this duality is not necessarily contradictory, as evictees ‘play by the rules to secure their rights’ (2013: 276). This rules-versus-rights binary and paradox is indeed a very relevant question for my own study, as I discovered that evictees and evictors alike stick to the nominal official rules but contest vigorously the interpretation of rights, each in accordance with their tacit understanding of the actual norm of practising demolition and particular tactics of bending the rules of demolition compensation. This paper provides a detailed, rarely available ethnographic record of the multivocal exchanges between evictees and frontline demolition personnel, and contributes to the study of how agents strategise and interact within a habitus of micro-power relationships. In the course of presenting my data and analysis, I employ the framework of practice theory and discuss its analytical purchase and limitation.
The demolition practice
In contrast to past evictees, most informants at the present demolition site believe they are subject to the improved policy protection enacted after 2011 and thus are more deliberate about engaging in prolonged bargaining and contestation. The home demolition social situation dovetails with practice theory’s perspective to help us understand the mutual relationship and interaction between sociopolitical reality’s constraints and agents’ tactics and practices within a particular social field.
The central idea of such an approach is understood as the ‘duality of structure’ (Giddens, 1979: 255) and the ‘dialectical relationship’ between the structure and the agents’ dispositions (Bourdieu, 1977: 84). Practice theorists generally emphasise bodily agency, intentionality, expressiveness, and affective response, yet ‘crucially insist that individual actions are shaped by social practices and the norms they embody’ (Rouse, 2006: 514; also see Postill, 2010). My analysis highlights a situation in which constraint agency is significant and where routine distinctions are observed between rules and norms. In the Bourdieuian paradigm, the asymmetric power relations between evictees and demolishers in the present case allow limited scope for social transformation (see Berard, 2005: 204; Ortner, 2006: 17; Rouse, 2006: 507). The kind of practice being studied typically lasts from a few months to a few years. The practice is locally situated according to specific local government policy and commercialised demolition teams’ tactics, yet is also affected by nationwide housing policy and market conditions. Whilst the practice is distanced from the routine of everyday life, it has an enormous bearing on the totality of family life.
Two questions are of particular relevance to the present analysis: Who represents the state in the manifold of asymmetrical power relations? And how can we discern the causal efficacy of the various actors’ practices in reproducing or transforming the social structure? My study shows the Party machinery needs not be conceived as a reified force but instead as a source of framing and enriching agency. Some Party cadres, bearing an inside, insightful understanding of an intriguing political reality, demonstrated a greater capability to circumvent the hurdles and transcend the problems encountered, viewing them as rare opportunities to enrich themselves. In this exceedingly dynamic fieldsite, the agency as depicted here shifts and mutates, to the extent of obscuring my understanding of whether a structure is being reproduced or indeed transformed in the conduct of house demolition by persuasion and threat, and counter-dispossession by a discursive reinterpretation of the official policy. One thing is certain, however: the majority of evictees and evictors alike are desirous agents engaged in risky practices in a constant micro-power play; their token evidence of rule abiding and Party loyalty represent more tactical gestures than genuine beliefs.
The site of serious bargaining
The onsite office of the demolition company, Yidi, is situated on the ground floor of a run-down, two-storey house. A long red banner printed with yellow characters hangs outside the entrance; it reads: ‘Demolition for the people; demolition in accordance with law; demolition under sunshine; demolition with harmony’. The main office covers an area of about 150 m2; it is sparsely furnished with a couple of worn-out sofas, a few wooden tables, a personal computer, a printer, and a second-hand air-conditioner sitting on an uneven cement floor. On the walls are posted various rules and regulations regarding ‘the urban demolition of endangered and old houses’, details of the demolition procedures and terms for compensation, as well as colourful posters of residential projects for compensation in the pipeline.
Organising demolition
The demolition area in which I conducted my participant observation encompasses some 300 households, managed by a convener, Dafa, a company under the district government registered for the purpose of undertaking co-redevelopment with property developers. Located on the second floor of the same building, Dafa is vested with the authority to approve compensation details for evictees. The overall onsite demolition and relocation office comprises both Dafa and its appointed demolition company, Yidi. Before negotiations begin, Dafa prepares a shortlist of property appraisers from which the evictees can choose, but some evictees told me that they have taken several hundred yuan (RMB) from the bidding appraisers to choose them in return, as they cannot see any real difference in the choice anyway. The chosen appraiser then provides a supposedly independent valuation of the neighbourhood’s properties with reference to market prices. However, evictees are generally cynical about the appraiser’s impartiality. Initially, some households tried to organise collective action vis-à-vis the demolition office, but these were soon banned and the whole process of bargaining becomes an emphatically individualised practice. Nonetheless, each individual evictee’s rationale, arguments, rhetoric, and tactics, although not always completely reasonable or consistent, form a complex, dynamic mode of interactions vis-à-vis the demolition personnel.
The onsite supervisor of Dafa is Mr Kui, a man in his late 40 s, and a no-nonsense quick thinker and persuasive talker. Privately, I was told that Kui owns many properties, including a townhouse that is also scheduled for demolition and compensation. Yidi’s founder, Mr Zhao, is a private entrepreneur who established Yidi several years ago with the help of a relative who had government connections. Yidi has been rather successful from previous projects. The work had started in early 2011, but progress was slow. By January 2013, less than one-quarter of the households had consented to leave. During one crisis meeting initiated by Kui and Zhao, the speakers took turns blaming the poor progress on the young work team’s lack of experience and enthusiasm, as well as tougher policy requirements. At the end of the meeting, few recommendations had been made and morale had not improved.
The demographics of evictees
The territory for which Yidi was responsible comprises two areas. Site A had 150 households, mostly from one rural village. Most households contain previous evictees from other districts. Site B included two 20-year-old residential blocks occupied by ex-employees of a state owned enterprise, and one small residential/retail block developed by the owner 10 years ago. The progress at Site B has been much better, with a success ratio of 2 : 1 over Site A, probably because most of the residents of Site A have learnt the tricks of hard bargaining , making negotiation efforts much more difficult. Occupants there reside in nine-storey buildings, with barely any refurbishment on the outer walls or in the corridors. There are no lifts in the buildings; barren, dusky staircases complete with rusted iron railings lead the residents to each storey’s three units. Even in broad daylight, the corridors are dim, covered in rubbish and dust. Walking up to the top floors is particularly difficult for the elderly, not to mention in midsummer (at over 35° C). That was perhaps why many evictees had requested a replacement apartment on the ground floor, despite their standard rhetoric of not being eager to move out.
Terms and procedure for compensation
The residential units were usually valued at around RMB280,000–380,000 (GBP1 = RMB10), based on the official appraiser’s appraisal benchmarks of Rmb4,700–4,800/m2 GFA. In accordance with the Demolition Compensation and Resettlement Scheme published by Dafa, compensation can be paid in kind or in cash. Evictees can opt for a replacement unit within a few kilometres of their present residence, based on a 1 : 1 ratio of unit area compensation, but these replacement apartments are mostly under construction, specifically for demolition resettlement. Thus evictees are not overwhelmingly receptive to these properties, which are thought to be of substandard quality. Regardless, the residents can request a larger-sized unit and pay the difference in valuation. In reality, many people ask for two units with an aggregate floor area far exceeding the size of their present dwelling, without paying for the difference in market values. A completed residential complex’s market price in the area was around Rmb7,000/m2; thus, apparently, it wold make little sense to go for the cash option. But numerous informants told me there was always flexibility, which means the final compensation substantially exceeds the stipulated ceiling, subject to Dafa’s discretion. Privately, I was informed the cash compensation actually reached Rmb9,000/m2 for well-connected evictees by early-2013. Nonetheless, the gap between the benchmark figures and most evictees’ demands remains around 30–50% over the compensation benchmark. When asked how they justified their demand, evictees typically answered, ‘It’s you who want to demolish our home, not us who are asking to move away’.
Previously, in the case of evictees who want greater compensation, the demolition office would apply to the district house administration bureau for an executive order of forced eviction. From 21 January 2011, all demolition must comply with the ‘Regulation on the Expropriation of and Compensation for Houses on State-owned Land’, a new law promulgated by the State Council. From then on, after the administrative verdict is delivered, evictees are to be given three months to comply or appeal, after which the convener would file an application to the court for a judicial forced eviction. As the local district government was poised for a major personnel reshuffle in October 2011, however, followed by the Communist Party’s 18th Party Congress in November 2012, any sensitive actions that might jeopardise social harmony and damage local officials’ careers were not allowed to proceed.
On the front line
The demolition office run by Yidi had a staff of nine. It was headed by Manager Niu, a former factory worker, about 40 years old, who joined Yidi two years ago. The majority of the team’s members were in their 20 s or early 30 s, and only one had received tertiary education. The team was divided into two groups for the routine home visits, discussions, and subsequent documentation work. Niu and Kui remarked that the teammates were always to refer to themselves as ‘demolition personnel’, rather than negotiators or representatives, to avoid any conspicuous connection with the government. As these people are working on the front line, I will refer to them as the onsite demolition personnel (ODP). Most ODP have no prior experience in the profession. They obtained their job because of direct or indirect relationships with Mr Zhao or someone from the house administration bureau. They are paid a rather unenviable Rmb1,800 per month, inclusive of allowances, an amount towards the low end of the municipal average salary range. They were very conscious that their status differs from those who work with Dafa upstairs, in terms of both economic well-being and discretionary power over the demolition work. They were entitled to performance bonuses, but this seemed a remote possibility, given the slow progress of the project.
Two officers, Director Hu from the local subdistrict office and Secretary Lin from the community office,22 also participated in the demolition efforts. Both veteran party members, Hu and Lin are semiretired residents in the district who know the neighbourhood very well. Despite bearing fancy titles, however, they are not tenure civil servants but contract staff supporting the government to ensure social harmony at the grassroots level. Their presence in the demolition office is to provide demographic intelligence on evictees and occasionally to attend home visits. They are government-hired, but both received a modest compensation from Yidi. In a sense, Wu and Lin embody conflicting roles of respecting the interests of the masses and facilitating the accomplishment of the government’s tasks.
Setting the record straight
After a few months of making home visits, the ODP had a good grasp of the demographic situation of the neighbourhood. From ODP’s viewpoint, they have little scope for manoeuvre, as any demand in excess of the standard compensation terms had to be reported to Mr Kui for further deliberation. However, Kui repeatedly denied to me that he wielded such extensive discretionary power. On the one hand, he explained that, previously, there had been cases in which small apartments had been compensated with two units, ‘because some households used to live in small apartments, but as their family members increased, they built extra structures; we therefore exercise discretion on humanitarian grounds’. On the other hand, very early on, he had noted the tepid response and had called an ODP review meeting. He thought the Yidi team was not fully conversant with explaining the government regulations and complained that its members lacked a kind of ‘mighty bearing’ or rigour (baqi) necessary to achieve success. He reckoned that, notwithstanding the public slogan about ‘harmonious demolition and enthusiastic service’, such ‘harmony’ is not without limit. This was how he advised ODP: You should explain to chaiqianhu the purpose of our demolition work is old-town redevelopment. Houses with outmoded facilities and antiquated infrastructures are not congruent with the modern urban image. Some may be of the view that we can’t evict everybody by force. Tell them bluntly that their homes will be the first to be demolished! There’re too many situations of cheating and pretence of ignorance; you can’t be too accommodating. Show off your baqi; take a hardened approach if necessary.
‘Other people all got richer; why should I be poorer?’
A middle-aged woman visited the demolition office. Speaking in a high-pitched voice, she requested an 86 m2 ready-made replacement in the nearby area for her present home of 63 m2. ODP: Your request of 86 m2 for 63 m2, plus a renovation subsidy, means Rmb100,000 over the government offer. If it were within our jurisdiction, we truly would have no reason to cause difficulty for you. Evictee: If the new home already had three or four floors constructed, it would be acceptable, but at present, the construction has not even commenced. ODP: If you still feel disadvantaged, you could consider the cash option. Evictee: No, I only want the house. I tell you, people who signed early on have special reasons for that; they have places to move to. In previous phases of demolition, some people got two units-for-one compensation! ODP: That’s what you say. Can you show us the contract as proof? Evictee: I tell you, you people must comply with Mayor Wang’s policy speech regarding the 50% additional compensation! ODP: Your interpretation is erroneous. This refers to the overall compensation ratio, but this doesn’t mean that each household gets 50% more compensation. Evictee (raising her voice): No benefits, no benefits for me. Other people all got richer by moving out. Why should I become poorer by moving? No deal!
‘You’re dissenting against society’
The Zhu family’s home on the top floor had a tiled floor, hanging glass lamps, a flat-screen television, and was fully air-conditioned. Mr Zhu was reluctant initially to come out to greet ODP, led by Ms Chen. He maintained a poker face, insisting, on the one hand, that the property valuation was meaningless, because they could not possibly buy a decent home with the compensation on offer. On the other hand, they were very happy with their existing apartment, which was conveniently located. Throughout the conversation, Zhu rarely caught Ms Chen’s eye, instead, watching a cartoon on television. Another ODP took over the discussion but earnt a disrespectful gesture from the host; to which ODP remarked, ‘I think you have an attitude problem, with a dissenting sentiment against society and the public interest’.
‘ I also understand the leadership’s policy very well’
Ms Hung’s home, measuring 65 m2, was fairly run-down, with minimal decoration. Her son was also present but showed much displeasure about the repeated visits to suppress them. Hung reiterated her demand, saying that the location of their home was good and that there were old people in the family. ODP replied that the request was in breach of government policy. Ms Hung became emotional and claimed that such a compensation ratio was enacted in other districts of the city: How come the same arrangement became invalid here only? Are the government policies interpreted differently in different places? I tell you, I also understand the policy of Lu Da Fang [the municipal party secretary] and Wen Jiabao [the Premier]!
Bargaining: Power and risk
From what I could ascertain, more than two-thirds of evictees in the demolition field were requesting a 2 : 1 compensation ratio without paying up for the presumed difference in valuations. From the demolition office’s perspective, this demand does not acknowledge the higher market price of new units compared with their current properties, which are in poor condition. Some ODP explained there had been cases where two apartments were allotted, but that was mainly because the original unit was so big that a compensating apartment of corresponding size was unavailable on the market. In addition, there were exceptional cases in which a small 30 m2 unit was compensated for with two units because of the household’s extremely crowded living conditions. Admittedly, when the demolition work enters the later phase, authorities will offer better terms to expedite its completion, but these exceptional situations have become an ongoing problem for the present task.
First-mover disadvantage
Most evictees believe that the later a deal is struck, the better the terms will be. The impression that early birds might have been disadvantaged was based on the chaotic situation prevailing during 2007-2009 when a mode of contract responsibility arrangement was endorsed whereby the demolition companies were given a lump sum within their budget to embark on their own projects and allowed to keep any benefits from squeezing evictees. Typically, the demolition companies would be more willing to sweeten the deals to settle with the last batch of households before proceeding to forced evictions. Although such contract responsibility practices have been abolished, their legacy continues to affect new evictees’ conceptions and expectations. Another issue concerns the municipal leadership’s public policy statement. It was claimed that the Mayor or Party Secretary had promised a 1.5 : 1 to 2 : 1 ratio of floor area compensation for the occupants, but ODP insist that no such policy applied to individual cases; rather, it referred to those extreme cases of households living under very crowded conditions. Whatever the perceived truth, the actual truth is that evictees have taken this hearsay as fact, something substantive, concrete proof of their argument’s validity and their demand’s righteousness.
Even if more favourable terms could be agreed upon, there may not be an available supply of prime replacement stock to allow a high ratio of compensation. It so happened that the early birds were able to select apartments in better locations. Indeed, most replacement apartments were under construction or even still at the planning stage, since demolition works for building these replacement housings also encountered similar difficulties. After selling plots of land to developers, local officials became very eager to lock in demolition costs by forcing evictees to move out as quickly as possible, but the shortage of built apartments meant that most evictees in transition could wait two years or more before settling into their promised new homes. This is a serious systemic bottleneck, which is partly to blame for the ongoing chaotic situation and apparently justifies households’ refusal to consent to move out within the government’s notified schedule. At the same time, evictees were resistant towards the cash option, as they believed that only compensation in kind allowed them an over 1 : 1 compensation.
Such is the formidable dilemma confronting all evictees who must decide whether or not to sign early. It appears obvious to me that every household has its own individual logic and insights developed through harsh learning from the turbulent history and brutal reality of housing reforms and demolition. Perhaps no other case exemplifies the contradiction between the ideal principles and the pragmatics of protecting one’s self-interest better than that of Secretary Wang, a Party committee cadre from a village affected by demolition a few years ago. Many of the affected villagers, along with Wang herself, have subsequently been compensated with apartments located at Site A. I was told she was relatively secure financially: she owns a taxi business worth several million yuan and another residence in addition to the apartment at Site A, which she rented out. ODP considered it a strategic breakthrough if they could persuade Wang to take the lead in accepting the compensation terms. The following is a record of the ODP team’s visit to her, led by Ms Chen and Secretary Lin from the community office: Secretary Lin: Today, we’ve come to discuss with you … hope that you will support us. Secretary Wang [smiling]: Support entails mutual cooperation. I heard that previously two-for-one compensation was allowed. Why is it impossible to do it this time? Ms Chen: Back then, it was because of the special situation related to the unavailability of large units; but the total floor area was not doubled. Secretary Wang: I was involved in the rural area’s demolition work. I know that flexibility always exists. Previously, we party cadres took the lead in moving out. We ended up getting less than those who initially resisted moving out. As human beings, everybody is selfish. I’ve learnt my lesson; this time, I will wait. For my case, please work harder to improve the terms. If my demand is satisfied, I won’t utter a word to anybody and I’ll also mobilize other chaiqianhu to move out …
The evictors as evictees
Secretary Wang’s attitude and practice hardly constitute an isolated case. Secretary Lin from the community office confided to me he actually had an apartment nearby but with the title disguised under his wife’s name. He had formulated an ‘ideal strategy’ for himself, having been engaged in hundreds of demolition cases and having considered his own options and risk-taking capacity. To begin with, he reckoned, one must display a cooperative attitude but only later reveal one’s demand, then resist the pressure for as long as possible; but remember never to infuriate ODP in order to avoid being selected for forced eviction. Finally, keep an ear to the ground, and settle quickly before the authorities decide to handle evictees ruthlessly.
If Lin’s strategy represents a well-formulated approach, the actual approach of Mei Mei’s family, one of the ODP at my fieldsite, confirms it as the utmost in practical sense. Mei Mei’s mother had worked for the government in the 1980s as one of the first generation of demolition personnel. By then she was acting in her official capacity, unlike the present day Dafa, operating as a development company. She later became a private entrepreneur and built a three-storey residence, now poised for demolition. There were a total of six units in the building that she owned, but she had signed the release of only three titles, which were of lesser value. Her consent was designed to demonstrate her cooperation with authorities whilst preserving her most valuable assets for later bargaining. Moreover, by releasing a batch first, she was entitled to choose replacement apartments in her preferred location for her family. She said the three vacated units were all on the ground floor so that the demolition company could not kick-start the demolition immediately without endangering the structure of the upper floors. Summarizing her family’s tactics, Mei Mei stated: All of our demands are within the flexibility and limit discreetly sanctioned by the policy. We won’t touch the authorities’ bottom line, unlike some ignorant chaiqianhu, who are making all kinds of reckless demands and posturing, as if forced eviction could never happen again.
A practice of distrust
On another occasion, I asked Secretary Lin how the majority of early birds felt. Regret, he reckons, is a common feeling among most of them, as they know that most evictees have not signed. There are three broad categories of evictee who struck a deal early with the government: households in financial difficulty who thus opted for cash compensation; well-off households who rented out their demolition apartments and so consider the compensation in kind as another kind of investment; and some who placed genuine trust in the government’s fairness.
When loyalty becomes a liability
The case of Mr Tian is clearly a regrettable one from the third category. During the several visits I paid to Tian’s home, I saw his suffering and that of his wife. In their 70 s, they lived in a 76 m2 apartment with their elder son’s family and their handicapped younger son. His whole extended family was in financial difficulty because of the heavy medical expenses for Mrs Tian and their younger son. They were compensated with two apartments under construction, with an extra payment of Rmb80,000. Tian was persuaded by ODP during a home visit to sign the agreement without consulting his family. They felt deceived, having been offered no hardship allowance and wanted to renegotiate better terms. One day, the Tian family came to see me and requested help. Unfortunately, I was told by ODP that their case was completed and would not be reopened.
Being a veteran party member, Mr Tian had thought the state needed his place, so he must pledge his support, implying that his family’s needs should come second to those of the state. But now he was left to rue his own premature decision and only sought fair treatment. He was ridiculed by his wife and daughter-in-law, who could not understand his ‘naivety’, in their own words. When I asked him whether, in hindsight, he should have teamed up with his neighbours to make a collective demand, he explained: ‘No, Party members coming together for discussion is a violation of Party discipline’. Mr Tian’s pure-minded Party loyalty stands in sharp contrast to most of my other Party member informants. They displayed a more ‘pragmatic and balanced’ reading of their duty towards the Party and society through a logical apprehension of their self-interest. The reality is that unfettered Party loyalty becomes a liability to one’s family.
Nominal rules versus actual norms
Nominally, official policy and procedures are not to be violated by either the demolition team or evictees, for the sake of the public interest and social harmony, but Director Hu once told me he had never heard of a public hearing of a disputed demolition case that resulted in a different verdict from the original one handed down by the authorities. Even so, both sides must follow the procedure, because ‘only after this step can we proceed to the next step’. Then why do evictees also participate in and conform to this formality, this game of pretence? ‘It’s because they can’t oppose the Party’s rules and procedures’, said Hu, with a somewhat circular logicality.
Notwithstanding their tacit knowledge of the demolition procedure, evictees and demolishers alike follow a definite set of rules and procedures. However, the real contestations always centre on households’ interpretation of the substantive meaning of the rules and conventions of the demolition. Evictees who display unreserved trust and obedience towards the government are in a constant state of distress and regret, whilst those who are ‘resilient’ enough to be able to distinguish between nominally imposed rules and genuinely endorsed norms remain more hopeful of obtaining a better result in this game of perpetual contestation and gain-seeking. ODP themselves are mere humble salary earners and privately told me that if they were the evictees, they too would have demanded equal compensation, for who would not? When ODP emphatically proclaims to evictees that compensation rules and schema are fixed and fair to all, they themselves are well-aware of the possibility of flexible arrangements but do not know the exact degree of this flexibility, which is under the domain of Dafa, the demolition convener. Interestingly enough, the head of Dafa also repeatedly denies the existence and exercise of such discretionary power; rather, time and again, he puts heavy pressure on frontline ODP to exert a ‘mighty bearing’ on evictees.
To further complicate the situation, within the demolition team, some members play the twin roles of evictor and evictee, thus displaying an oscillating rhetoric between persuading other evictees and defending their own interests. This is a paradox in which agency results depend on an unspoken distrust engendered by a presupposed body of knowledge of past and present unfairness. The rich data gathered during my fieldwork provide an empirical vindication of both rule-guided and causally induced practices, conditioned by power and intentionality, respectively. Not only is a local relation of power differentials observable; but also articulated and acknowledged is a strong intentionality with conscious plots, plans, and schemes, cognitively and emotionally pointed towards a clear purpose.
Practising power on the margin
In the demolition field, the representation of power is not unambiguously defined or located. As one householder states sarcastically, ‘Everyone says they’re representing the state or explaining policies on behalf of the government, but I’ve never actually come across a single official’. Indeed, the demolition convener, ODP, Director Wu, and Secretary Lin are all performing merely on the margin of a power relation; how the interplay of this presupposed power relation is conceived and enacted is blurred, subject to each individual agent’s interpretation and contestation.
It is obvious that various agents’ habitus (Bourdieu, 1977) are structured and produced by the historical practices of house demolition. This habitus ensures the active presence of past experiences, which ‘tend to guarantee the “correctness” of practices and their constancy over time, more reliably than all formal rules and explicit norms’ (Bourdieu, 1990: 54). Thus actions selected by agents always seem sensible and rational to the agents themselves. But the habitus being analysed here is simultaneously more fluid and mutable, engendered by many city dwellers’ tacit understanding that seeking maximum benefits from demolition projects represents an opportunity of a lifetime for becoming rich, for securing a flourishing life. Moreover, there are great variations in the habitus of individual stakeholders, for example, even among Party veterans: the ‘naïve’ Mr Tian agreeing to initial terms and the ‘cunning’ Secretary Wang holding out for a tacit deal. The contrasts between ordinary evictees and those who end up performing the dual role of demolition personnel and evictees are also striking. As such, there is no such thing as a singular homogeneity of habitus, which informs the limitation of the analytical purchase of ‘habitus’ in general.
One thing is certain though: all stakeholders have neither the intention nor the capacity to challenge the state’s inherent power structure. Here, the contestation is fundamentally not about a simple form of domination/resistance relations but essentially about the desires and nourishment of individuals on the margins of power. The overarching power relation is not subject to challenge but is employed dialectically. Instead of condemning government policy, evictees repeatedly make use of the local leadership’s statements to counter the policy deliberation of the demolition convener who is in possession of residue of power. Our agents undoubtedly engage embedded power mechanics at the local level, but evoking and confronting blatant dissemination of state power is the last thing they want. Rather, evictees’ agency is a form of intention and desire, pursuing specific goals and enacting practices of presumed calculated risk.
Conclusion: Following rules and procedure without followers
Outside the demolition office, there is another banner that reads, ‘Trust the government; don’t believe in rumours; don’t fabricate rumours; don’t spread rumours’. Ironically, in the field of house demolition, an agency is constructed through a history of unfairness, and a practice and culture of distrust. Evictees who have struck deals to move are not given a copy of the supplementary agreement, which details additional compensation over and above the nominal standard, and are warned not to reveal details to their neighbours. They may privately tell a number of close relatives, who then leak the information to third parties. Gradually, all this becomes the base of rumour and hearsay. This is a regime of no facts, for facts are not casually available but reconstructed and believed. In playing out their tactic of counter-dispossession, evictees are not all on a level playing field. They are playing a genuinely dangerous game, one in which not everyone possesses the same vital knowledge or is aware of the critical risks ahead. Most evictees believe in the existence of flexibility and discretion, but are sadly reinforcing of the convener’s tactical power of discretion in approving terms of compensation and picking targets for forced eviction.
Ironically, the housing privatisation process in China is engendered to a large extent by the semi-privatised and contracted acts of house demolition and land resumption executed by local authorities’ agents on behalf of commercial interests, yet at the same time, it functions to allow state agencies to wriggle out of accepting direct accountability and full responsibility. In the end, the constraint agency of evictees, particularly well-versed and well-connected ones, unwittingly reproduces a structure of unfairness and unfaithfulness, in nominally abiding by but vigorously bending demolition compensation’s official rules, on the back of their tacit understanding of the actual norm of practising demolition and counter-demolition. In the eventual results of each agent’s strategising, there can be chaos and unintended consequences, despite agents’ inherent intentionality. Nobody feels certain or confident that adherence to an utterly consistent scheme and procedure will be the outcome. The profound paradox is that everybody plays by a rule and a procedure, but few agents are naïve enough to trust the existence of genuine procedural justice. By behaving this way, they are reproducing a certain structure of rules and assumptions, and their own subjectivity and habitus. At the same time, the majority of evictees are laying bare the faint possibility of transformation with either the political insiders’ opportunistic insights or the reckless evictees’ misconceived, naïve belief in a different political reality; but whether for good or for ill, no one can predict.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Harri Englund for advice, and Critique’s editor in chief and anonymous reviewers for their constructive responses.