Wang, Jiageng (2024) Aestheticization of Infrastructural Power: How is the Everyday Life Conditioned by Waterfront Infrastructure in Beijing? Master thesis.
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Abstract
It remains a complicated question that how Chinese governments perceive infrastructure in conducting their power. Overrepresented by materiality, infrastructure is often seen as rigid and apolitical engineering works. The critical urban theory tries to advocate an “infrastructure turn” in urban studies to encourage reflections on how infrastructure impacts on everyday life and practice in the aspects of techno-politics and aesthetics. There are some case studies focusing on details of the government's exercise of power with the help of infrastructure. But there is little empirical research on China’s government’s workings, despite this country’s fame of an “Infrastructure Maniac”. So the first main question that this thesis tries to address is what does infrastructure mean to space and the everyday life of citizens under the urban transformation in China. The thesis explores the centrality role of the state (or the government) in creating and managing infrastructure projects in urban China. Two aspects are emphasized, namely the techno-political and aesthetic meanings of workings. The aesthetics of infrastructural power are foregrounded to explain how the infrastructure and everyday life are conditioned by the state power. This study takes the urban renovation project of the Liangma River in Beijing and relevant events as the targeted case. Detailed field research and observations provide a valuable chance to disentangle the power relations in the waterfront renovation process. The interactions between infrastructure and power are endowed with aesthetic meanings on three levels: the engineering of the waterfront, the discipling of activities and the discourses. The study addresses the second main question about how and how far the government interact with social life and space in the arena of the Liangma River. The two qualities of infrastructure, the techno-politics and aesthetics respectively answer the two main questions on “what” and “how” is infrastructure. Through critical investigation on the production and management of infrastructure, one can see the urban government’s perception on its legitimacy and significance in urban China. More empirical studies on the relations between China’s infrastructure and everyday life are expected to enlarge the critical urban studies literature.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Master) |
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| Degree programme: | Environmental & Infrastructure Planning |
| Supervisor: | Roo, G. de |
| Date Deposited: | 04 Sep 2024 11:51 |
| Last Modified: | 04 Sep 2024 11:51 |
| URI: | https://frw.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/4750 |
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