What Has Been Marginalized? Marginalization as the Constrained ‘Right to the City’ in Urban China

Abstract

In many ways, the term ‘marginalization’, like ‘social exclusion’, is loaded and subject to different interpretations. Recent debates on Wacquant’s Urban Outcasts published by a series of review papers in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research highlight the controversies about the term (e.g. Caldeira, 2009). As Hamnett shows (in this volume), urban inequality has a bearing on the condition of urban life but the notion of social polarization might not be universal in different globalizing cities. Occupational polarization, for example, clearly depends upon the level of immigration of unskilled labour. Gilbert (in this volume), referencing the Latin America experience, relates marginalization to ‘neoliberal’ state policies, another meta concept extensively used recently to explain social inequality. In doing this, he notes, however, that the impact of neoliberalism across Latin America has not been homogenous. The poor do benefit from at least some of the neoliberal instruments that expose them to the processes of globalization. What is particularly significant in the context of Latin America is the relative impoverishment affecting working populations, and in this sense, urban growth driven by globalization is accompanied by a process of marginalization. This point, as elaborated below, is particularly relevant to urban China. That is, the growth of impoverishment is not just the result of a welfare state shrinking in quantity and quality but also due to the institutional changes associated with urbanization, for example, the development of informal settlements, residential segregation and a systemic shortage of affordable housing. Keeping in mind the controversies surrounding the notion of mar-ginalization, in this final chapter, we attempt to ask what has been marginalised in urban China.