Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses spatial transformations and business development directed by local level government officials in the Street Office in central Beijing. It reveals new modes and styles of governmentality, their impact on daily life, and the varied responses of local residents.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing on in-depth fieldwork conducted in the disappearing hutong (neighbourhoods made up of alleyways) in central Beijing, this paper considers how a Yuan-dynasty (1271-1368AD) alleyway was transformed into a 'bar street with hutong characteristics' to represent Beijing culture for the 2008 Olympics. The paper provides a view of state-engineered consumerism, modernization and marketization in post-Mao China. Discussing spatial reconfiguration and business development led by the grassroots-level government, called the Street Office, this paper reveals new modes and styles of governmentality and their impacts on the day-to-day life of the local residents (the hutongers).

Part of an imperial legacy in terms of architecture and urban planning, this alleyway, though listed, has been redeveloped into what Ferguson and Gupta (2002: 995) might describe as 'a transnational "local" that fuses the grass-roots and the global.' Many indigenous people, while losing their previous way of life, which was largely defined by a socialist economy, have gradually engaged in self-enterprising activities informed by newly-emerging neoliberal ideologies and turned up-to-date state policies to their advantage. Their various responses to a rapidly shifting urban landscape and political economy in post-Mao China demonstrate their high degree of adaptability and flexibility. This has enabled their seemingly unlikely participation in state-dominated urban development and informs their on-going negotiation of their right to the city.