Land expropriation and the gender politics of citizenship in the urban frontier

In: The China journal: Zhongguo yan jiu, Heft 64, S. 19-46

Abstract

In China's urbanizing spaces, expropriation of land has become a major source of revenue for governments, and compensatory income for the members of village collective organizations. In October 2008, China's leadership signaled its intention to adjust this relationship to ensure that development of rural land contributes to development among expropriated villagers. This decision foreshadows a significant devolution of decision making and control over profits from land development to village organizations. In this context, the question of who is a village member assumes profound importance, for while members will be entitled to decide on, participate in, and benefit from land development, non-members will not. In this paper, we draw on theorizations of citizenship as both rights-bearing membership in a political community and participation in the polity, to explore links between the determination of women's citizenship entitlements and the gender distributive outcomes of land development. Drawing on a comparative study conducted in peri-urban settlements in six districts and counties in Fuzhou, Changsha and Yuxi between 2007 and 2009, we examine conflicts among villagers and between villagers and governments to establish which villagers share in compensation for expropriated land. Our findings suggest, first, that villages across China are translating virilocal marriage customs into gender-exclusive rules on village membership and entitlement. Hence, against the view that villagers' "rightful resistance" is grounded in the "unfragmented" nature of village political power, our research highlights the gender-discriminatory impulses spurring villagers' defense of local political and property rights. Second, our findings demonstrate that the adoption of gender exclusive citizenship criteria in villages experiencing land development adversely affects not only many women, but also their households and communities. Finally, the study suggests that women's opposition to their exclusion from village citizenship is contributing to the emergence of differently gendered modalities of citizenship in the margins of Chinese cities. (China J/GIGA)