"Metropolis, Urban Governance and Citizenship in China and in Europe"
From 1949 to 1979, the urbanization process stagnated in China before entering a period of considerable acceleration in tandem with industrialization. In Europe these two processes were spread over several centuries but only in two decades in China. This leads to the appearance of specifically Chinese economic and social phenomena which have been the subject of much recent research. The specificity of these processes has raised questions which have not really been asked in Western Europe. We shall distinguish different boundaries in Chinese and European Metropolis. These colonial, ethnic, social and economic boundaries are the expression of multiple dominations, which always adopts different forms and, above all, that become entangled in differentiated modes that are producing inequalities which are situated. Contemporary Chinese Metropolis are characterized by new urban hierarchies, which are less contrasted than in European Metropolis, since they are scattered around the city and concentrated in certain specific areas. So it means transformations of social stratification in Metropolis and megalopolises: augmentation of segregations, strong social polarisation, emergency of a new underclass, urban gentrification, urban re-foundation… It also means we have to consider a diversity of national models, of modes or urban governance, of public policies.
Citizens and social groups are caught between assignment to certain localities and flowing through the Metropolis. Depending on the moment, life phase or situation, they may seem to be trapped or able to move. Social and ethnic segregation is to a large extent an institutional product, and especially a product of social housing policies and practices. Contemporary Metropolis may have different forms of segregation and discrimination –especially of less-qualified and qualified migrants- but they still allow access to different kinds of space and provide renewed opportunities to individuals and groups, making it possible to enter high legitimacy economic spaces as demonstrated by some migrant workers who construct and experience upward social mobility.
European and Chinese Metropolis are producing plural economies in a multiplicity of high or less legitimacy places. Furthermore mass unemployment, growing uncertainties in work relations and labor, the decline of institution and the recomposition of new institutional forms, all concur to point out that modernity is mostly about the wavering of an actor relentlessly forced to define again and again his place and his identity. On the one hand, social, economic and ethnical inequalities keep growing, along with new forms of exploitation, reject, stigmatization and even destitution of the “weakest”. On the other hand, cultural domination, recognition denial and disrespect create situations of injustice. Exploited workers, young people facing high uncertainties, migrants -and ethnic minorities in European Metropolis- subject to racial discrimination, do express recognition demands which can break into public space at any time, as social movements, riots, rebellions. In such instances, they force a redistribution of social, moral and public recognition and they redefine the hierarchy of identities.
Furthermore, new risks of health, food, floods, environment and ecological disasters have produced uncertain situations, new public spaces and new inequalities in European and Chinese Metropolis. The global urbanization and Metropolisation phenomena lead return of questions about justice in the city. Between social, spatial and environmental justices, the concept of "just city" appeared in recent years. In these contexts of more or less uncertainty and of high social and physical liability, collective action and social mobilizations emerge and reveal new forms of citizenship in a new local and global public space.
In this respect, new forms of citizenships are productive of new social exchanges, new solidarities, new moral economies, related to social inequalities in Chinese and European Metropolis in turmoil. Citizens compete for material and social goods, emergent moral economies produce new social and economic frontiers, new social and moral orders for the struggle of public recognition and social justice.
Program
Saturday, November 28
9 :00 Introduction
Professor Li Peilin, Vice-president of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Professor Li Youmei, Vice-president of Shanghai University
Professor Laurence Roulleau-Berger, Research Director at CNRS, Triangle, ENS Lyon
9:30 Session 1 : Metropolis and Multiple Inequalities
Discussant : Li Peilin, Professor of sociology, Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
9:30 Laurence Roulleau-Berger, Research Director at CNRS in sociology, Triangle, ENS Lyon, Co-Director of the LIA : Metropolis, diffracted inequalities and « right for the City » in Europe and in China
10:00 Zhang Wenhong, Professor of sociology, Shanghai University: Social inequalities and social governance in urban China
10:30 Bruno Cousin, Assistant Professor, Lille 1 University: Spatial and social trajectories in European Metropolis
11:00 Su Yihui, Assistant Professor of sociology, Shanghai finance and economics University : Emergence of the Interns' Collective Actions
11:30-12:00 Discussion
13:45 Session 2 : International Metropolis and Urban Governance
Discussant : Li Youmei, Professor of sociology, Shanghai University
13:45 Gilles Pinson, Professor of political sciences at Sciences Po Bordeaux : European Metropolis and New public action
14:15 Sheng Zhiming, Assistant Professor of sociology, Shanghai University : Leader Ideology, Organizational Institution, Community Resource: Factors Influencing the Community Governance Performance in Urban China
14:45 Min Xueqin, Assaciate Professor of Sociology, Nanjing University : Research on the Logic and Path of Urban Governance : Based on Negotiation
15:15 Chen Guangjin, Professor at Institute of Soicology, CASS : Social Governance in China : dual tradition of urban and rural, its modern transformation
15:45-16:15 Discussion
16:30 Session 3 : Environmental justice and citizenship
Discussant : Xie Lizhong, Professor of Sociology, Peking University
16:30 Guillaume Faburel, Professor of urbanism at Université Lyon 2, Triangle: Environmental inequalities and “just city”: towards a cosmopolitical perspective for urban policies
17:00 Liu Chunyan, Associate Professor of Sociology, Shanghai University: Technological Risk or Crisis of Confidence?: Urban Movements against PX in China
17:30 Cui Yan: Assistant Professor of sociology, Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences:
Research on the Motivation of Citizens’ Environmental Awareness and Environmental Organization Participation during the process of Urbanization
18:00-18:30 Discussion
Sunday, November 29
9:30 Session 4 : Metropolis and urban life
Discussant : Zhou Xiaohong, Professor of sociology, Nanjing University.
9:30 He Rong, Professor of sociology, Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences: New Person grown out of old tenets: faith, social network and urban life of christians in s-nj church
10:00 Valérie Sala Pala, Professor of Political Science, University Jean Monnet, Saint-Etienne, Triangle: The institutional production of segregation and populating: social housing policies and practices in French and British Metropolis.
10:30 Luo Jar-Der, Professor of sociology, Tsinghua University: Integrating Qualitative Study and Quantitative Measurement in Computation Sociology
11:00 Liu Neng , Professor of Sociology, Peking University: Homelessness in the Chinese urban context: A preliminary examination
11:30-12:00 Discussion
14:00 Session 5 : Metropolis and new urban economies
Discusant: Liu Shiding, Professor of Sociology, Peking University
14:00 Zhang Dunfu, Professor of sociology, Shanghai University: Shanghai’s Unlicensed Taxi (Hei Che)：insights for social governance
14:30 Tong Xin, Professor of sociology, Peking University: New Lifestyle and New Employment Model During Internet Time
15:00 Michel Kokoreff, Professor of sociology Paris 8, GTM/CRESSPA: Metropolis and criminal economies
15:30-16:00 Discussion
16:30 Liu Yuzhao, Professor of sociology, Shanghai University: Collective Economics During Urbanization
17:00 Yan Jun, Assistant Professor of sociology, Shanghai University: A balance between profit and reputation: the economic life of the artists in Shanghai
17:30-18:00 Discussion
18:00-18:30 CONCLUSION by Professor Zhang Wenhong, Professor Li Peilin and Professor Roulleau-Berger