Strangers in a Familiar City: Picun Migrant-worker Poets in the Urban Space of Beijing
Urbanisation and rural-urban labour mobility are two founding traits of China’s contemporary society and socio-economic model. The connection between the two and the peculiar social mobility control system still in force, which bars non-urban residents from accessing basic services in the city, cre...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Arnold Bergstraesser Institute
2020-03-01
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| Series: | International Quarterly for Asian Studies |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/iqas/article/view/10749 |
| _version_ | 1811265965741047808 |
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| author | Federico Picerni |
| author_facet | Federico Picerni |
| author_sort | Federico Picerni |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description |
Urbanisation and rural-urban labour mobility are two founding traits of China’s contemporary society and socio-economic model. The connection between the two and the peculiar social mobility control system still in force, which bars non-urban residents from accessing basic services in the city, creates a new form of social stratification between the “centre” and the “periphery” of urban society, as well as a new subject in the city – one not fully urban, nor still peasant, but remaining an outsider in the city. Migrant-worker communities have formed, one of the foremost being Beijing’s Picun urban village. In this paper, I analyse a corpus of poems published online in recent years by members of a literature group of migrant workers based in Picun. Reading them as a case of subjective representation of the social space of the city and the authors’ positioning in its web of social relations, and adopting a socio-literary approach, I particularly focus on the relation with the rural home, urban alienation and anomie, and the effort for symbolic recognition, locating this production in the larger spheres of contemporary migrant-worker literature and urban literature. By doing so, I demonstrate that such a literature challenges the coherence and uniformity of the city’s “text” (and identity), offering a multi-layer perspective of the socio-cultural production of urban space.
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| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T20:33:29Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-1fc98a8d3e844aa3a064cbaf93d43479 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2566-686X 2566-6878 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T20:33:29Z |
| publishDate | 2020-03-01 |
| publisher | Arnold Bergstraesser Institute |
| record_format | Article |
| series | International Quarterly for Asian Studies |
| spelling | doaj.art-1fc98a8d3e844aa3a064cbaf93d434792022-12-22T03:17:40ZengArnold Bergstraesser InstituteInternational Quarterly for Asian Studies2566-686X2566-68782020-03-01511-210.11588/iqas.2020.1-2.10749Strangers in a Familiar City: Picun Migrant-worker Poets in the Urban Space of Beijing Federico Picerni Urbanisation and rural-urban labour mobility are two founding traits of China’s contemporary society and socio-economic model. The connection between the two and the peculiar social mobility control system still in force, which bars non-urban residents from accessing basic services in the city, creates a new form of social stratification between the “centre” and the “periphery” of urban society, as well as a new subject in the city – one not fully urban, nor still peasant, but remaining an outsider in the city. Migrant-worker communities have formed, one of the foremost being Beijing’s Picun urban village. In this paper, I analyse a corpus of poems published online in recent years by members of a literature group of migrant workers based in Picun. Reading them as a case of subjective representation of the social space of the city and the authors’ positioning in its web of social relations, and adopting a socio-literary approach, I particularly focus on the relation with the rural home, urban alienation and anomie, and the effort for symbolic recognition, locating this production in the larger spheres of contemporary migrant-worker literature and urban literature. By doing so, I demonstrate that such a literature challenges the coherence and uniformity of the city’s “text” (and identity), offering a multi-layer perspective of the socio-cultural production of urban space. https://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/iqas/article/view/10749BeijingPicunmigrant-workersliteraturepoemsurban space |
| spellingShingle | Federico Picerni Strangers in a Familiar City: Picun Migrant-worker Poets in the Urban Space of Beijing International Quarterly for Asian Studies Beijing Picun migrant-workers literature poems urban space |
| title | Strangers in a Familiar City: Picun Migrant-worker Poets in the Urban Space of Beijing |
| title_full | Strangers in a Familiar City: Picun Migrant-worker Poets in the Urban Space of Beijing |
| title_fullStr | Strangers in a Familiar City: Picun Migrant-worker Poets in the Urban Space of Beijing |
| title_full_unstemmed | Strangers in a Familiar City: Picun Migrant-worker Poets in the Urban Space of Beijing |
| title_short | Strangers in a Familiar City: Picun Migrant-worker Poets in the Urban Space of Beijing |
| title_sort | strangers in a familiar city picun migrant worker poets in the urban space of beijing |
| topic | Beijing Picun migrant-workers literature poems urban space |
| url | https://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/iqas/article/view/10749 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT federicopicerni strangersinafamiliarcitypicunmigrantworkerpoetsintheurbanspaceofbeijing |