ABPL2 Chinese Urban Migrants\' Sense of Place PDF

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Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Vol. 55, No. 1, April 2014 ISSN 1360-7456, pp81–101

Chinese urban migrants’ sense of place: Emotional attachment, identity formation, and place dependence in the city and community of Guangzhou Junxi Qian and Hong Zhu Center for Cultural Industry and Cultural Geography, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China. Email: [email protected] (J. Qian); [email protected] (H. Zhu, corresponding author)

Abstract: In this paper, we study urban migrants’ sense of place in Guangzhou, China, focusing on the structural relations between place attachment, identification and dependence as the three key place dimensions. Through both quantitative structural equation modelling and qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews data, our research suggests that migrants’ sense of place demonstrates complex relationships between the three registers of emotional attachment, identity formation and functional dependence. The construction of sense of place is also related to the personal experiences of living as urban ‘outsiders’. Our research also reveals a striking difference between the city and community levels in terms of the ways in which migrants’ sense of place is constructed. Urban migrants tend to exploit the functional utilities of microscopic urban spaces to meet their demands for recreation, education and socialisation. On the other hand, their sense of place to the city is largely compromised by their attachment to the hometown and conditioned by their personal identification to the city. Keywords: Guangzhou, place attachment, place dependence, place identity, sense of place, urban migrant

Introduction Migration and the construction of sense of place The theoretical foundations in debates on sense of place can be traced back to the scholarship of humanistic geography which pioneered viewing place as the centre of cultural meanings and perceived values. Such a perspective towards place is built upon the argument that

human subjectivity and everyday spatial experiences contribute significantly to the production of the meanings of places (Relph, 1976; Tuan, 1977). In accordance with this argument, the concept of sense of place brings to the foreground the ways in which human agency actively interprets and narrates the role which place plays in framing emotional feelings and cultural identities. In this paper, sense of place refers to an affective, positive and emotional bonding of human beings with places and a

© 2014 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd

doi: 10.1111/apv.12039

J. Qian and H. Zhu

socially, culturally and psychologically constructed man–lieu relationship (Tuan, 1974; Hay, 1998a; Paradis, 2000; Williams et al., 2010). More recently, human geographical scholarship has begun to view place as physical space that is made meaningful through the active participation and practice by social members. The study of sense of place, therefore, needs to understand the ways in which place can ‘say something’ (Cresswell, 2004: 2) about our cultural identities, our roles in an overall social structure, and our possibilities of creating multiple ways of life through active and creative use of place and space. It connects our sense of place with the network of social relations, social structures and social identities (Anderson, 1991). This move towards social identities and social relations in understanding sense of place helps us to view place as an emotional investment as well as a social construct (Harvey, 1996; Sack, 1997). Bearing in mind the conceptual richness of sense of place, this paper attempts to contribute to the understanding of the relationships between migration, sense of place and the social construction of place-based meanings. While earlier studies regarded migration as a de-territorialising process associated with the annihilation of place-based emotional bonding, many recent scholarly works suggest that the concept of place should be positioned in a spatial context which involves migration as an important axis around which the meanings of place are constructed (Lawson, 1999). A number of scholars have argued that migration per se does not lead to the dissolution of migrants’ emotional bonding with places (Cuba and Hummon, 1993). Following this, studies have been advocating a more nuanced understanding of the interplays of identity and subjectivity, of emotional accommodations and longing, across the places of migration. This approach highlights the incessant re-negotiation of place-based identities in multiple sites in order to illustrate the complex processes of belonging and exclusion embedded in the trajectories of migration (Lawson, 1999). In places receiving migrants, there are close relationships between social, material, psychological and discursive spaces in which migrants’ emotional relations to place are continuously constructed and transformed (Kirby, 1996). 82

The process of migration combines various types of places at various locations and geographical scales under particular social, economic and cultural conditions (Pascual-de-Sans, 2004). On the one hand, empirical studies have shown that dislocation may result in pressure or grievance due to displacement from previous connections to places (Entrikin, 1991; Sharpe and Ewert, 2000). As Fried (2000) has suggested, displacement from a community can result in grief and mourning due to the disjunction between current physical space and more established cultural identities (Inhalan and Finch, 2004; Bog˘aç, 2009). On the other hand, however, it is also likely that migrants reconstruct a sense of place through intensive psycho-spatial engagements with new physical environments. Our social relations and emotional experiences are never confined to a single place, but located in a chain structure of roots and routes (Gustafson, 2001). Kothari’s (2008) research on transnational migrants also argues that the identity of migrants is produced in a web of connections which links personal identities with other migrants as well as local people through interactive social relations. This process creates ‘marginal urban spaces’ in which social bonds can be strengthened and hybrid cultural identities are formed. Thus, this paper argues that for migrants making a ‘home’ in a new place means not only the possession of a physical shelter but also the re-establishment of social and cultural relations which brings together spaces, objects and elements to represent and celebrate new relationships, emotions, events and experiences (Dayaratne and Kellett, 2008). It enables a previously dislocated individual to re-establish a point of orientation in relation to the world and organise social and spatial relationships around a referential geographical location in space (Bachelard, 1964; Tuan, 1977). However, while significant advancements have been made in more general theorisation of the relationships between migration and sense of place, there have been limited empirical attempts to investigate migrants’ sense of place under particular social, economic and cultural conditions of living as a non-local. This research is undertaken to engage with this inquiry through investigating the cultural and psychological complexities that underline the place-making process of migrants.

© 2014 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd

Chinese urban migrants’ sense of place

The approach adopted in this research is to examine and evaluate the various dimensions of migrants’ perceived meanings of place at two geographical scales, namely the city and the community space. On the one hand, for urban migrants a community space is a potential site in which intensive place-based experience can be fulfilled. Therefore, it is where complex processes of meaning-making and identity formation at a microscopic space within a community are likely to be observed. On the other hand, it has long been recognised that sense of place resides in a variety of geographical scales. A place in a house, the home, a neighbourhood, a city, a region and a country can all be the focal point around which meanings are produced and experienced (Tuan, 1975). A culturally or institutionally demarcated geographical region in which more microscopic spaces and place experiences are situated can become emotionally charged in general (Lalli, 1992; Hay, 1998a,b; Lewicka, 2008). In this process, more microscopic place experiences are translated into the cultural meanings of macroscopic places such as a town or a city. Thus, the city is always an assemblage of cultural symbols, discourses and representations. Thus in terms of the city, the intensity of sense of place is gauged via one’s representations and narratives that describe emotional experiences. Also, the city and the community may represent fairly different combinations of place-based experiences and place-based meanings. The main hypothesis made and tested in this research is that places at different geographical scales can contribute to different patterns and structures of sense of place, and display different relations between separate dimensions of sense of place. The quantifiable structure of place-based meanings can vary between a place at the microscopic scale and a place at a more macroscopic one. The production of sense of place is contingent upon the specific social, economic and cultural conditions of living as urban migrants in the city. Setting the scene: Internal migration in a developing Asia This research is situated in the large-scale internal migration, in particular the rural-to-urban

migration, in the context of China’s recent economic transition (Fan, 2008). Since the beginning of China’s economic reform, internal labour migration from less developed regions to more developed centres of industrial production has become one of the principal contributing factors to China’s economic development and rapid industrialisation (Fan, 1999; Liang, 2001). However, in the existing literature on internal migration in China, little has been said about the possibilities for urban migrants to actively participate in the social and cultural processes of the city for the re-negotiation of lifestyle and cultural identities. The primary institutional barrier for the urban migrants to actively adopt an urban cultural identification, without doubt, is the hukou system installed as a means for both social control and the allocation of public services (Cheng and Selden, 1994; Chan and Zhang, 1999). Urban migrants’ entitlements to social services and welfare are denied on the basis that they do not hold a local hukou (Solinger, 1999; Zhang, 2001; Wang, 2005; Chan, 2009). From a geographical point of view, the hukou system forecloses the possibility for urban migrants to participate in the cultural construction of many urban spaces and places. Internal migration in China resonates with other fast-developing economies in Asia. In Vietnam, the Doi Moi reform has created an institutional and economic milieu fairly comparable with that in China. Migration from less developed regions to more developed centres is the outcome of Vietnam’s transition to a market economy and the rapid process of industrialisation around its major urban centres (Dang et al., 1997; United Nations Vietnam, 2010). Similar to the hukou system in China, the Vietnamese ho khau system restricts migrants’ access to urban-based employment, resources and public services (Hardy, 2001; United Nations Vietnam, 2010; Nguyen et al., 2012). In Indonesia, similar migration to urban-based industrial employment has been observed among young women from the area of Lampung (Elmhirst, 2002). In Lampung, indigenous communities have been squeezed out of local spaces of livelihood due to the large-scale immigration of Javanese settlers (Elmhirst, 1999). As a result, migration for industrial work has been employed as an alternative strategy to earn a living in face of ethnic tension.

© 2014 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd

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Without doubt, urban migrants face notable difficulties in overcoming institutional and cultural barriers in adopting an urban identity. But in the meantime, urban migrants are also actively involved in the negotiation of identity and lifestyle. Urban migrants may develop new cultural identifications to adjust to urbancentred social and cultural fabrics, in both legal and cultural terms (Nguyen et al., 2012). Thus, this article attempts to present a detailed analysis of the ways in which urban migrants can actively appropriate certain urban space for negotiating ways of life and cultural identifications. It focuses on the ways in which urban migrants’ practices of space can contribute to the formation of place-based meanings and identifications, often within established institutional constraints such as the hukou or ho khau system. The remainder of the paper will be divided into four sections. First, we will outline the immediate social and economic context, methodologies adopted, and the conceptual framework used in this research. The following two sections report the empirical findings, starting with the results of our quantitative modelling and complemented by a qualitative analysis of the discursive materials gathered from in-depth interviews. The last section concludes. Research design and methods Guangzhou and Dadong Community Culture Center This research is conducted with regard to two geographical scales. Macroscopically, our research focuses on urban migrants’ place bonding with the city of Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong Province. In recent years, Guangzhou has witnessed unprecedented urban spatial and economic development since the implementation of China’s open-door policy (Xu and Yeh, 2003; Lin, 2004). Along with this drastic development process, the city has seen an ever-increasing number of urban migrants who come primarily from rural areas. The influx of these migrants has fundamentally reshaped the local labour market, contributing significantly to the city’s industrial and service development through a great pool of a low-cost labour force. In 2009, about 6 million migrants 84

were working and living in this metropolitan area, accounting for almost half of the city’s total population (Guangzhou Daily, 2009). At a microscopic level, our investigation is located at the culture centre of the Dadong Residential Community. Dadong Community lies at the centre of the Yuexiu District. It covers an area of 1.02 sq km with over 90 000 longterm residents. Of these residents, 8000 are urban migrants who do not have official hukou status but keep their permanent or long-term residence in the community. The community managerial authority emphasises the important role that this social group plays in stabilising and sustaining the community. Owing to a philosophy of benign governance, a communitybased project named ‘Golden Goose’ was launched to provide community-based social services to migrants in the community. This project was started in 2008 by the community managerial authority and is funded jointly by the District Government of Yuexiu and the Dadong Community. While the physical settlements of the sub-projects are sparsely distributed across the entire community, the Community Culture Center is the most important site associated with Golden Goose Project. The culture centre provides opportunities for regular recreational and social activities for both local and migrant community members. In the meantime, the culture centre is also the location for six sub-projects of the Gold Goose programme (Fig. 1). In Guangzhou, each neighbourhood features a community culture centre which is a publicly funded communal facility. Normally, such community spaces are open to both the local residents and migrants free of charge. But in most cases there is no specific government action to facilitate migrants’ participation, and thus migrants may feel culturally alienated among the locals. The community culture centre in Dadong, therefore, appears to be a notable exception. In the Western context, various studies on the community life of migrants, notably in ethnic enclaves such as Chinatowns, have demonstrated the potential of shared communal spaces in both meeting the functional demands of migrants and strengthening social bonds (Thompson, 1989; Zhou, 1995; Lin, 1998). The culture centre in Dadong is precisely such a space which aims at fostering community soli-

© 2014 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd

Chinese urban migrants’ sense of place

Figure 1. Location of Guangzhou in China and the location of the Dadong Community Culture Center in Guangzhou

darity. The authors became familiar with this culture centre because of their involvement in a research project which focused on the provision of community-based cultural activities and public services. The community culture centre in Dadong was set as an example of community-based services provided to migrants by the District Government of Yuexiu. As such, the culture centre has been chosen as the point of entry in this research. The authors are positioned as ‘outsiders’ to the participants in the culture centre owing to their lack of personal involvement in the collective social and cultural activities in question. The culture centre in Dadong Community, as well as the Golden Goose Project as a whole, is reflective of Guangzhou’s recent changes in policies concerning hukou regulations and the provision of social services to urban migrants. In 2010, Guangzhou Municipal Government introduced a scoring system to quantitatively measure urban migrant’s eligibility to obtain a Guangzhou hukou. Yet it also established a social hierarchy among the migrants. According to this system, any urban migrant who intends to obtain a local hukou is scored according to a set of criteria.1 As a result, only those who are more educated and skilled, possess higher levels of economic and social capital, and have prospect significant contributors to the city’s economic development can expect to obtain a local hukou. On the other hand, the provincial government of Guangdong and the municipal government of Guangzhou have proposed several ways to promote the provision of basic social

services to urban migrants in terms of housing, work-skills training, legal services and medical care.2 Due to the institutional constraints imposed by the hukou system, many of the social services provided to migrants need to be located at the community level through semigovernmental and non-governmental organisations.3 The Golden Goose Project emerged precisely in such a context. Although it cannot build up a system of public services as sophisticated as that operated under the hukou regime, it has nonetheless created opportunities for the migrants to improve their human capital and develop alternative ways of living and socialising. The conceptual and analytical framework Before proceeding to the empirical research, special effort needs to be made to clarify the controversial nature of the measurement and evaluation of sense of place. In this research, sense of place is defined as encompassing a number of interconnected dimensions, among which the constructs of place attachment (PA), place identity (PI) and place dependence (PD) are at the heart of existing studies. The focus of our quantitative analysis is the structural relations between these three place dimensions. In other words, this paper sees sense of place as the joint effect of three separate yet mutually related perceptions of man–place bonding. There is no unitary measurement of the somewhat nebulous concept of sense of place. Rather, this seemingly all-encompassing

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concept needs to be deconstructed into more nuanced levels of analyses. In this research, PA is understood as the emotional bonds that people have developed with places (Altman and Low, 1992; Williams et al., 1992; Lewicka, 2008). I...