Paper short abstract:

An earthquake rumour that shook the rural-urban housing terrain in central Shanxi, China, revealed contrasting pathways between people securing a home based on past trajectories into a knowable future and their reorientation when faced with the unpredictability of a cataclysmic housing event.

Paper long abstract:

Throughout the twentieth century anthropologists of rural China considered building a house, home and family central to life projects creating stability, security and happiness for Chinese farmers. In the last three decades, a widespread housing boom swept across China and interconnections between rural and urban environments increased exponentially. In central Shanxi diverse perspectives on value, habit, comfort, convenience and aesthetics are normally at the forefront of people's decisions on how and where to live in this uneven rural-urban context. However, during the Chinese New Year period in 2010, the circulation of a rumour that an earthquake was immanent ruptured the predictability of the knowable future. Unofficial networks of emergency communication came alive in the dead of night as everybody in the area spread the word through telephones, visits and generalized warnings of fireworks and sirens. Safety became the primary concern as people braved the subzero temperatures to move their belongings, sleep outdoors or climb mountain paths to their rural relative's homes until danger passed. The earthquake scare and its aftermath revealed the power of unofficial communication networks and the inversion of housing preferences as immediate coping strategies for the potentiality of disaster. Over the subsequent weeks, mistrust towards official safety proclamations and faith in the voice of prophesies emerged as central ways that villagers attempted to contain and overcome the uncertain possibility of a catastrophic future.