Forced From Home: Property Rights, Civic Activism, And The Politics Of Relocation In China.

The aim of this article is twofold: First, it documents and analyzes the nature of the emerging struggle over property rights through an ethnographic account of how different social, economic, and political interests conflict and intersect with one another in post-Mao urban development. I suggest that property-based activism plays a critical role in the development of citizenship rights, but it also has an important class dimension because it is often the property rights of a certain class of citizens that are violated. I also document how displaced residents adopt multiple strategies of resistance (including law) to advance their interests. What is particularly salient is the rise of a popular consciousness centered on property rights, and how this new language of rights has become a vital basis for citizens' individual and collective action. Second, this study explores shifts in late socialist power dynamics and tensions between private property rights and development in a context where "law" remains murky and weak. By taking a closer look at how private property is actually understood and negotiated in everyday life, I question a popular position advocated by many scholars (especially economists) that clearly defined property rights are key to economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]