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Artistic Statification: Rural Land Transformation of Creative Clusters by the Neoliberal-Authoritarian State in Songzhuang, China

Chen, Zhouying (2024) Artistic Statification: Rural Land Transformation of Creative Clusters by the Neoliberal-Authoritarian State in Songzhuang, China. Master thesis.

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Abstract

This research investigates the role of state behind urbanization process of rural creative cluster in China. Creative city research usually discussed the neoliberal logic of intercity competition, or how the state limited the artistic autonomy, but the role of the state in space reconfiguration are ignored. The state-led artistic urbanization process involves complex state logic beyond purely neoliberal. To highlight the role of the state, this paper proposed a new concept of ‘statification’ to explain the economic, political and social dimensions of state-led rural land transformation. Songzhuang Art Village, the biggest artists’ enclave in Beijing China, is used as a case study in this research. Several qualitative methods are used to collect empirical data, including interviews, focus groups, observation, online news reports, and policy analysis. The findings are (1) informality is the key neighborhood feature to attract statification process; (2) crafting urban discourse of illegal construction, establishing state-authorized developing enterprises, and fluidly definition of illegal construction are major state economic strategies to produce space for the affluent and to benefit from rural land transformation; (3) urban planning are used as state instruments to govern rural areas; (4) sharing state resources with artists elites and artistic censorship are significant state strategies to co-opt the artists’ community. By analyzing the empirical data, I conclude that the state logic behind statification can also be discussed in three dimensions: economically the state grab land benefits from informal land users in rural land transformation, and politically planning is used as a strategy to encompass place into state’s hegemonic power space, and socially the state-society relationship are actively reshaped by the state to permeate its ideology into individual life.

Item Type: Thesis (Master)
Degree programme: Society, Sustainability and Planning (MSc Socio-spatial Planning)
Supervisor: Ozogul, S. and Ataol, O.
Date Deposited: 22 Jul 2024 10:44
Last Modified: 22 Jul 2024 10:44
URI: https://frw.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/4522

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