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“Snail Households”: Containerization of Migrant Housing on Shanghai's Fringe

“Snail Households”: Containerization of Migrant Housing on Shanghai's Fringe China's escalated infrastructural building and real estate development have gradually erased urban villages and reduced affordable living space for rural-to-urban migrants. This article showcases the emerging practice of container housing among low-income migrants, based on ethnographic data collected between 2016 and 2018 in Shanghai. Such “snail households” living in removable cargo containers and prefabricated metal shelters represent a submissive coping mechanism in response to demolition and eviction, to reduce living cost and stay put on the urban fringe. This article examines the containerization of migrant housing, a process of sociospatial reconfiguration of migrant livelihood that has become increasingly precarious during China's economic restructuring in the twenty-first century. It shows how container housing reifies the state capitalist mode of production and accumulation. The containerization of migrant housing entails a multifaceted process of extraction of labor and land, during which migrants’ mobility and sense of entitlement are highly contained. Container housing represents migrants’ sociospatial precarity in China's exclusive urban citizenship and place-specific property regime. It symbolizes a reinforced subaltern position of migrants subdued in the politics of accumulation, which contributes to the lack of strong resistance and collective action amid forced eviction. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png positions Duke University Press

“Snail Households”: Containerization of Migrant Housing on Shanghai's Fringe

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Copyright
Copyright 2022 by Duke University Press
ISSN
1067-9847
eISSN
1527-8271
DOI
10.1215/10679847-9723724
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

China's escalated infrastructural building and real estate development have gradually erased urban villages and reduced affordable living space for rural-to-urban migrants. This article showcases the emerging practice of container housing among low-income migrants, based on ethnographic data collected between 2016 and 2018 in Shanghai. Such “snail households” living in removable cargo containers and prefabricated metal shelters represent a submissive coping mechanism in response to demolition and eviction, to reduce living cost and stay put on the urban fringe. This article examines the containerization of migrant housing, a process of sociospatial reconfiguration of migrant livelihood that has become increasingly precarious during China's economic restructuring in the twenty-first century. It shows how container housing reifies the state capitalist mode of production and accumulation. The containerization of migrant housing entails a multifaceted process of extraction of labor and land, during which migrants’ mobility and sense of entitlement are highly contained. Container housing represents migrants’ sociospatial precarity in China's exclusive urban citizenship and place-specific property regime. It symbolizes a reinforced subaltern position of migrants subdued in the politics of accumulation, which contributes to the lack of strong resistance and collective action amid forced eviction.

Journal

positions – Duke University Press

Published: Aug 1, 2022

References

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    Chan, Kam Wing Zhang, Li
  • Forced Flexibility: A Migrant Woman's Struggle For Settlement
    Cho, Mun Young
  • Urban Chinese Homeowners as Citizen-Consumers
    Davis, Deborah S. Garon, Sheldon Maclachlan, Patricia
  • Rare Protests in Beijing Condemn Forced Evictions
    Dou, Eva
  • Settlement Intention and Split Households: Findings from a Survey of Migrants in Beijing's Urban Village
    Fan, C. Cindy
  • To Choose a House Means to Choose a Lifestyle: The Consumption of Housing and Class-Structuration in Urban China
    Fleischer, Friederike
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  • Rapid Urbanization and the Aspiration and Challenge of Second- Generation Urban-Rural Migrants
    Han, Jialing
  • Consuming Urban Living in ‘Villages in the City’: Studentification in Guangzhou, China
    He, Shenjing
  • Land and Territorial Politics in Urban China
    Hsing, You-tien
  • Low-Income Housing in Chinese Cities: Policies and Practices
    Huang, Youqin
  • Housing Migrants in Chinese Cities: Current Status and Policy Design
    Huang, Youqin Tao, Ran
  • Invisible Migrant Enclaves in Chinese Cities: Underground Living in Beijing, China
    Huang, Youqin Yi, Chengdong
  • A Year after Deadly Daxing Fire, No Let-Up in Campaign to Marginalise Migrant Workers
    Keegan, Elmer
  • Segmented Incorporation: The Second Generation of Rural Migrants in Shanghai
    Lan, Pei-Chia
  • China's Precariats
    Lee, Ching Kwan
  • Container Housing: Formal Informality and Deterritorialised Home-Making amid Bulldozer Urbanism in Shanghai
    Ling, Minhua
  • Housing Access, Sense of Attachment, and Settlement Intention of Rural Migrants in Chinese Cities: Findings from a Twelve-City Migrant Survey
    Liu, Zhilin Wang, Yujun Huang, Youqin Li, Si-ming
  • Son Preference in Rural China: Patrilineal Families and Socioeconomic Change
    Murphy, Rachel Tao, Ran Lu, Xi
  • Subsumption or Consumption? The Phantom of Consumer Revolution in ‘Globalizing’ China
    Pun, Ngai
  • Informal and Precarious Work: The Precariat and China
    Swider, Sarah C.
  • Residential Space and Collective Interest Formation in Beijing's Housing Disputes
    Tomba, Luigi
  • Of Quality, Harmony, and Community: Civilization and the Middle Class in Urban China
    Tomba, Luigi
  • ‘Rigid Demand’: Economic Imagination and Practice in China's Urban Housing Market
    Wang, Mengqi
  • Chengshi bianyuan de dagongzhe: Dang ‘guizu’ shi wunaijingdili haibuhuai de xuanze
    Wang, Min Bo, Yi
  • Real Estate Development and the Transformation of Urban Space in China's Transitional Economy, with Special Reference to Shanghai
    Wu, Fulong Logan, John R.
  • Migrant Workers Find Home in Discarded Shipping Containers
    Xu, Chi
  • Beijing Shouji: Qiechu xingdong yinian hou
    Yang, Shan
  • ‘My Life Is Elsewhere’: Social Exclusion, Stratified Urban Space, and Rural Migrant Consumption of Homeownership
    Zhan, Yang
  • Forced from Home: Property Rights, Civic Activism, and the Politics of Relocation in China
    Zhang, Li
  • The Hukou System and Rural-Urban Migration in China: Processes and Changes
    Chan, Kam Wing Zhang, Li
  • Forced Flexibility: A Migrant Woman's Struggle For Settlement
    Cho, Mun Young
  • Urban Chinese Homeowners as Citizen-Consumers
    Davis, Deborah S. Garon, Sheldon Maclachlan, Patricia
  • Rare Protests in Beijing Condemn Forced Evictions
    Dou, Eva
  • Settlement Intention and Split Households: Findings from a Survey of Migrants in Beijing's Urban Village
    Fan, C. Cindy
  • To Choose a House Means to Choose a Lifestyle: The Consumption of Housing and Class-Structuration in Urban China
    Fleischer, Friederike
  • ‘Guizu’: Chengshi bianyuan de xianshi yu mengxiang
  • Rapid Urbanization and the Aspiration and Challenge of Second- Generation Urban-Rural Migrants
    Han, Jialing
  • Consuming Urban Living in ‘Villages in the City’: Studentification in Guangzhou, China
    He, Shenjing
  • Land and Territorial Politics in Urban China
    Hsing, You-tien
  • Low-Income Housing in Chinese Cities: Policies and Practices
    Huang, Youqin
  • Housing Migrants in Chinese Cities: Current Status and Policy Design
    Huang, Youqin Tao, Ran
  • Invisible Migrant Enclaves in Chinese Cities: Underground Living in Beijing, China
    Huang, Youqin Yi, Chengdong
  • A Year after Deadly Daxing Fire, No Let-Up in Campaign to Marginalise Migrant Workers
    Keegan, Elmer
  • Segmented Incorporation: The Second Generation of Rural Migrants in Shanghai
    Lan, Pei-Chia
  • China's Precariats
    Lee, Ching Kwan
  • Container Housing: Formal Informality and Deterritorialised Home-Making amid Bulldozer Urbanism in Shanghai
    Ling, Minhua
  • Housing Access, Sense of Attachment, and Settlement Intention of Rural Migrants in Chinese Cities: Findings from a Twelve-City Migrant Survey
    Liu, Zhilin Wang, Yujun Huang, Youqin Li, Si-ming
  • Son Preference in Rural China: Patrilineal Families and Socioeconomic Change
    Murphy, Rachel Tao, Ran Lu, Xi
  • Subsumption or Consumption? The Phantom of Consumer Revolution in ‘Globalizing’ China
    Pun, Ngai
  • Informal and Precarious Work: The Precariat and China
    Swider, Sarah C.
  • Residential Space and Collective Interest Formation in Beijing's Housing Disputes
    Tomba, Luigi
  • Of Quality, Harmony, and Community: Civilization and the Middle Class in Urban China
    Tomba, Luigi
  • ‘Rigid Demand’: Economic Imagination and Practice in China's Urban Housing Market
    Wang, Mengqi
  • Chengshi bianyuan de dagongzhe: Dang ‘guizu’ shi wunaijingdili haibuhuai de xuanze
    Wang, Min Bo, Yi
  • Real Estate Development and the Transformation of Urban Space in China's Transitional Economy, with Special Reference to Shanghai
    Wu, Fulong Logan, John R.
  • Migrant Workers Find Home in Discarded Shipping Containers
    Xu, Chi
  • Beijing Shouji: Qiechu xingdong yinian hou
    Yang, Shan
  • ‘My Life Is Elsewhere’: Social Exclusion, Stratified Urban Space, and Rural Migrant Consumption of Homeownership
    Zhan, Yang
  • Forced from Home: Property Rights, Civic Activism, and the Politics of Relocation in China
    Zhang, Li