![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
Abstract
Place identity is a fluid construction that is in a constant dynamics of re-imagination. Changes in economic, social, cultural and political conditions lead individual and groups to re-imagine and rebuild their place-based identity. One major force that causes people's interruption in place identity is the rationalizing spatial process that reduces place into abstract space that is open to reorganization. In this paper, we investigate the interruption, reconfirmation and renegotiation of the place-based identity of local residents of the former municipal district of Dongshan, Guangzhou, China, after the official administrative establishment of Dongshan was cancelled by the Guangzhou municipal authority in 2005. Thirty-six in-depth interviews were conducted, and it is found that local Dongshan residents' place identity had generally been enhanced, rather than vitiated, after the 2005 change of administrative division, while discourses about interruptions in their place identity fill up their narratives. Although sensing obvious interruption in place-based identity, local Dongshan residents re-imagined the meanings of the place of Dongshan to build up culturally delimited borders that were conditioned by the name Dongshan, and this re-imagined place-based identity results from the local residents' renegotiation about what the place of Dongshan is and how their identities are connected to the place.
L'identité de l'endroit est une construction fluide qui est dans des dynamiques constantes de la ré-imagination. Des changements dans des conditions économiques, sociales, culturelles et politiques mènent l'individu et des groupes à ré-imaginer et reconstruire leurs identités basées sur l'endroit. Une force majeur qui provoque une interruption dans des identités de l'endroit des gens est le processus spatial rationalisé qui réduit l'endroit à un espace abstractionniste qui est ouvert à la réorganisation. Dans cet article, nous investiguons l'interruption, la réconfirmation et la renégociation de l'identité basée sur l'endroit des résidents locaux de l'ancien district municipal de Dongshan, Guangzhou, Chine, après l'autorité municipale de Guangzhou a annulé l'établissement official administratif de Dongshan en 2005. On a mené trente-six entretiens en profondeur, et on a trouvé que l'identité de l'endroit des résidents locaux de Dongshan a généralement amélioré plutôt que vicié après le changement de la division administrative de 2005, de la même façon que des discours sur des interruptions dans leurs identités de l'endroit remplissent leurs récits. Bien qu'ils ressentent une interruption évidente dans l'identité basée sur l'endroit, des résidents locaux de Dongshan ont ré-imaginé les significations de l'endroit de Dongshan afin de développer des frontières locales délimitées culturellement qui ont été conditionnées par le nom Dongshan, et cet identité basée sur l'endroit ré-imaginée est le résultat de la renégociation des résidents locaux à propos de qui est l'endroit de Dongshan et comment sont leurs identités connectées à cet endroit.
La identidad de lugar es una construcción flujo que está constantemente reinventado. Cambios económicos, culturales y políticos se causan personas y grupos reinventar y reconstruir su identidad. Un esfuerzo dominante que se interrumpe la identidad de personas es el proceso espacial de racionalidad que se reduce el lugar a un espacio abstracto que puede ser reorganizado. En este articulo, investigamos la interrupción, reconfirmación y renegociación de la identidad de residentes locales del distrito municipal de Dongshan, Guangzhou, China, cuando la municipalidad de Dongshan fue eliminado por los autoridades de Guangzhou en 2005. Treinta y seis entrevistas fueron realizados, y se encuentra que las identidades de residentes de Dongshan fueron elevados, no desmerecidos, según el cambio de división administrativa de 2005, y discursos de la interrupción de sus identidades dominan sus narrativos. Notando la interrupción en su identidad, residentes de Dongshan reinventaron los significados del lugar Dongshan para construir fronteras culturales y esta identidad reinventado se resulta de la renegociación de los residentes del significado del lugar Dongshan y como sus identidades están conectados al lugar.
Acknowledgements
Funding for this research comes from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant No. 40771067, 40701041), and the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (grant No. 10251063101000007).
Notes
1. Guangzhou's 2005 change of administrative division was typically representative of the subsuming power of the hegemonic discourse of urban development. In search for more space for urban expansion and industrial development, Guangzhou launched a plan to establish two new municipal districts, i.e. Luogang and Nansha, at the more peripheral area of the city. However, the State Council of China prescribed that the total number of Guangzhou's municipal districts could not be increased. As a concession to the central state, Guangzhou Municipal Government decided that the administrative establishments of Dongshan and Fangcun would be cancelled, in order that the number of districts would stay unchanged.
2. Dongshan Gentlemen (Chinese Pingyin: Dongshan Shaoye) referred initially to the liberal-minded, well-educated young Chinese men that resided around the area of Dongshan-Kou during the former Republican Era. These gentlemen owned properties and settled in Dongshan, but their families—which were usually wealthy enough to support their flâneur lifestyle and social networks in Guangzhou—were usually based overseas. Those gentlemen were usually receivers of western education and behaved elegantly, and were largely adored by the Guangzhou locals. Gradually, the concept of Dongshan Shaoye became an important cultural symbol of Dongshan District.
3. During the interviews, we are particular interested in to which place the local Dongshan residents identify themselves (in Chinese: Wo shi nail ren?). Under the cultural context of China, ‘being from where’ is closely connected with the construction of personal or group identity. In this sense, the authors used the questions on the interviewees' self-definition of ‘where I am from’ or ‘where I belong’ as the starting points for investing the meanings of place to them, as well as their place-based identity. To be sure, this enquiry was also assisted with a number of other interview questions.
4. Among the thirty-six respondents of the in-depth interviews, twenty spent their entire life in Dongshan and never left. The rest of the sixteen respondents migrated to settle in Dongshan, but after their settlement, they never left to live in other places. Some respondents moved into Dongshan before 1949, while others came after the founding of the PRC to Dongshan for job opportunities. Among the sixteen respondents, nine had lived in Dongshan for over thirty years.
5. A Spring Festival Flower Market is an important cultural tradition in Guangzhou, bearing Guangzhou locals' good wishes for the Chinese New Year. Before the change of administrative division, Dongshan and Yuexiu had their Spring Festival Market respectively, and the market in Dongshan, with its cultural significance, was obviously a channel through which the Dongshan residents' place memory was embodied.
6. An official Citizen ID card or Marriage Certificate in China registers citizens at the municipal district level.
7. The Chinese experience we present in this paper suggests that the politics of identity process is contingent on the internal communication of local power structure. Under the cultural context of China where the state power is prevalent in the organizing of social life, and a mature civil society is fundamentally absent, the asymmetry of power contributes to a place imagination that differentiates Dongshan's place politics from the Anglo-American experiences where place-based identities often lead to direct confrontations of the civil society with indifferent state power. In this sense, we can see that identity process is not a self-bounded realm of abstract representation of meanings. Rather, it is largely structured through local geometry of relative power.