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Interview with Xuefei Ren, Co-Winner of the 2022 Robert E. Park Book Award

Posted on January 10, 2023 by Steven Schmidt Leave a comment

Xuefei Ren (Michigan State University) was the co-winner of the 2022 Robert E. Park Book Award for her book, Governing the Urban in China and India: Land Grabs, Slum Clearance, and the War on Air Pollution. CUSS publication team member Kyle Galindez reached out to Xuefei to discuss the genesis of her book and what is next for her research agenda.

What motivated you to study this research topic?

My first two books—Building Globalization: Transnational Architecture Production in Urban China (University Chicago Press, 2011) and Urban China (Polity Press, 2013) focused only on Chinese cities only. While working on these projects, I began questioning whether China’s urban experience is as exceptional as specialists often argue. I decided to incorporate a comparative perspective into my work and turned my attention to the urban experience of another enormous, developing country—India.

What were the main findings of your research?

My book challenged two prevalent views on urban governance in China and India. The first is the state-capacity perspective—the view that China’s urban governance is defined by powerful local governments, and India’s by fragmented local authorities. The second concerns regime types—the view that the key differences in urban governance in the two countries can be explained by a country being authoritarian or democratic. I critique these views as reductive and propose an alternative thesis.

I argue that urban governance in China is territorial in nature as it is anchored on territorial institutions; urban governance in India, by contrast, is associational because it is based on alliance building. The reasons for these disparate approaches, I conclude, are rooted in each country’s historical and institutional development in the longue durée.

Post-reform China inherited from previous eras a set of strong territorial institutions (such as the hukou system and dual-track land ownership) and introduced new territorial policies (such as Special Economic Zones) to spearhead urban development. India, lacking strong territorial institutions, bases its urban governance on associational politics, as actors from the state, the private sector, and civil society form contingent alliances to promote policies and projects.

What surprises did you find as you conducted your fieldwork/study?

At the theoretical level, the territorial logic of Chinese urban governance is a surprising insight. It is rarely discussed in urban China studies, which tend to focus on the local state capacity only. It’s an insight that came out of the comparison.

On the policy level, I was surprised by the imbalance in information and knowledge among Chinese and Indian policy makers. Many Chinese officials and business people simply don’t know much about India. When Chinese officials take international “study tours,” most of them choose to visit the U.S. and Europe. If they knew more about India, they would find many points of comparison to be illuminating and meaningful. On the other hand, Indian policymakers and business leaders know a lot about China. They are very aware of the pitfalls of the Chinese model of development—high levels of inequality, over-investment in infrastructure, unsustainable land-based municipal financing, dominance of state capital, and the large rural-urban divide.

How do you plan to build on this work in the future?

As a University of Chicago-trained urban sociologist who has been studying cities in the developing world, I want to connect the fields of American urban sociology and global urban studies. Building on my research on China and India, I have extended my comparative work to North American and European cities. I’m working on a project about the “global rustbelt”, examining culture-led revitalization in Detroit, Harbin (China) and Turin (Italy). I’m also working on a new project related to the pandemic, with colleagues in Canada and South Africa. We want to study how Chicago, Toronto and Johannesburg differently responded to the pandemic and how the pandemic has affected the most vulnerable neighborhoods in these three cities.

Newsletter

CUSS Sessions at ASA 2022

Posted on June 9, 2022 by Community & Urban Sociology Leave a comment

Queer Placemaking Beyond the Gayborhood

Monday, August 8, 2022

10:00 – 11:30 am

Co-Organizers:

Greggor Mattson, Oberlin College (gmattson@oberlin.edu)

Mahesh Somashekhar, University of Illinois-Chicago (msoma@uic.edu)

This panel explores strategies of placemaking and community by LGBTQ+ populations beyond the metronormative and post-gay subcultures and representations within iconic gay neighborhoods. We invite submissions that center the spatial expressions and experiences of LGBTQ+ people across various geographic contexts, including, but not limited to, suburbs, rural areas, “ordinary cities,” online and virtual spaces, and geographies hostile to LGBTQ+ rights. We also welcome submissions that explore how marginalized LGBTQ+ communities might refashion and reimagine spaces and places within iconic gay neighborhoods. We especially encourage submissions that focus on contexts outside central cities and the Global North, that deploy intersectional and antiracist approaches, and those that center on the agency of marginalized populations.

Presider: Mahesh Somashekhar, University of Illinois-Chicago

Panelists:

“Queer Latinx Political-Creatives in Los Angeles: A Spectrum of Space-Making Strategies”

Jessennya Hernandez, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign

“Density, Diversity, Culture: How Place Characteristics Shape Individual Sense of Community for LGBTQ People”

Connor Craig Gilroy, University of Washington

“Rethinking Queer Spaces: Making of a Subversively Queer Space in a South Korean Choir”

Jiwon Yun, Yale University

“Flirting with Non-Existence: Hidden Currencies of Gay Expatriate Nightlife in Dubai”

Ryan Centner, London School of Economics

Urban Futures: Cities after COVID-19

Monday, August 8, 2022

2:00 pm – 3:30 pm

Co-Organizers:

Krista E. Paulsen, Boise State University (kristapaulsen@boisestate.edu)

Youbin Kang, University of Wisconsin-Madison (ykang62@wisc.edu)

This panel engages how the COVID-19 pandemic impacts the future of cities. We invite submissions that consider how the pandemic reshapes community and urban citizenship, population density and distribution, transportation and infrastructure, work, technology, urban cultures, leisure and urban nightlife, spatial justice, and urban movements. We also welcome submissions that highlight how the pandemic exposes new urban problems and inequalities confronting our cities. We especially encourage submissions that focus on contexts outside central cities and the Global North, that deploy intersectional and antiracist approaches, and those that center on the agency of marginalized populations.

Presider: Krista E. Paulsen, Boise State University

Presenters:

“Digital Urban Governance: Data Work in Crisis Response”

Yan Long, University of California-Berkeley

Wei Willa Luo, Stanford University

“Creation after Disaster: LGBT+ Placemaking in Mexico City During COVID-19”

Christina Marie Chica, University of California, Los Angeles

“From #CancelRent to #SocialHousing: The Politics of Radical Demands in US Cities After COVID-19”

Gianpaolo Baiocchi, New York University

Howard Jacob Carlson, Brown University

“Informal Livelihoods or Ineffective Cash Transfer Programs: Explaining COVID-19-Contagion Rates in Lima”

Lissette Aliaga Linares, University of Nebraska at Omaha

“Social Engagement and Happiness during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Return to Gemeinschaft?”

Alonso Aravena, Baylor university

Homelessness, Unsheltered Populations, and Housing Precarity

Tuesday, August 9, 2022

8:00 am – 9:30 am

Co-Organizers:

Christine Jang-Trettien, Princeton University (cjj3@princeton.edu)

Kesha S. Moore, Thurgood Marshall Institute (kmoore@naacpldf.org)

This panel explores the various ecosystems of homelessness and housing insecurity. We invite submissions that consider how the pandemic and the ongoing housing crisis have expanded or complicated our understanding of homelessness and those who fit that category. Topics include, but are not limited to, (re)conceptualizing homelessness, unsheltered populations, and housing precarity, community, government, and media responses to homelessness and housing insecurity, policies around containment and displacement, criminalization and policing of homeless and housing insecure populations, and people’s efforts to mobilize on their own behalf. We especially encourage submissions that focus on contexts outside central cities and the Global North, that deploy intersectional and antiracist approaches, and those that center on the agency of marginalized populations.

Presider: Kesha S. Moore, Thurgood Marshall Institute

Presentations:

“Housing Instability and Adult Wellbeing”

Hope Harvey, University of Kentucky

Brielle Bryan, Rice University

“Pandemic Poverty Governance: Neoliberalism Under Crisis”

Devin Michael Collins, University of Washington

Katherine Beckett, University of Washington

Marco Brydolf-Horwitz, University of Washington

“Resisting and Reclaiming: Housing Occupations by Homeless Mothers in Three U.S. Cities”

Claire W. Herbert, University of Oregon

Amanda Vel Ricketts

“‘We’ll Make it Work’: Navigating Housing Instability Following Romantic Partner Incarceration”

Angie Belen Monreal, University of California, Irvine

Kristin Turney, University of California, Irvine

Steven Edward Schmidt, University of California, Irvine

Migrations: Forced, Temporary, and Voluntary

Tuesday, August 9, 2022

10:00 am – 11:30 am

Co-Organizers:

Teresa Irene Gonzales, University of Massachusetts-Lowell (teresa_gonzales@uml.edu)

Cheryl Llewellyn, University of Massachusetts-Lowell (cheryl.llewellyn@gmail.com)

This panel investigates the various approaches to studying migration in the twenty-first century. We invite submissions that consider the impact of such factors as the pandemic, environmental disasters, violence, and the ongoing housing crisis in cities on the voluntary, forced, or temporary geographical movement of populations. Topics might include, but are not limited to, the ecosystems of immigration, forms of out-migration driven by COVID-19 to lower density areas, Black, Latinx, and other communities of color out-migration from the central cities to lower-income suburbs or rural areas, and political refugees. Papers may also consider the implications of out-migration from cities, how patterns of migration force a reimagining of spaces and places, and the placemaking strategies of migrant communities arising out of these patterns. We especially encourage submissions that focus on contexts outside the Global North, that deploy intersectional and antiracist approaches, and those that center on the agency of marginalized populations.

Presider: Cheryl Llewellyn, University of Massachusetts-Lowell

Presenters:

“Precarious Migrant Workers in Limbo Between Migration, Labor, and Criminal Law”

Kurt Kuehne, University of Wisconsin-Madison

“Return Migration, Reintegration, and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Kyrgyzstan”

Saeed Ahmad, Utah State University

Erin Trouth Hoffman, Utah State University

“The Institutional Mechanisms of Minority Displacement: The Southeastern Perspective”

Yael Shmaryahu-Yeshurun, University of California San Diego

“The sakan shababiyy, or the world improvised: displacement and masculine domestic space in Lebanon”

Samuel Dinger, New York University

“Turkish Emigration as a Response to the Incremental Degradation of Democracy”

Dugyu Alpan, Stony Brook University

Unlearning Core Concepts in Urban/Community Sociology

Tuesday, August 9, 2022

12:00 pm – 1:30 pm

Co-Organizers:

Zachary Levenson, University of North Carolina, Greensboro (zachary.levenson@uncg.edu)

Demar Lewis, Yale University (demar.lewis@yale.edu)

This session explores how growing scholarly attention to decolonizing sociology calls for new perspectives that question, challenge, and unsettle foundational concepts, frameworks, and debates within Urban and Community Sociology. We invite submissions that draw on various socio-spatial contexts from diverse geographic locations to offer a critical and reflexive exploration of the field’s epistemic and methodological limitations and suggest new approaches for investigating a range of topics, including (but not limited to) the city/suburb/rural divide, community, urbanism, segregation, local community membership, gentrification and renewal, insecurity (housing, food), displacement and dispossession, and local activism. We especially encourage submissions that focus on contexts outside the Global North, that deploy intersectional and antiracist approaches, and those that center on the agency of marginalized populations.

Presider: Zachary Levenson, University of North Carolina-Greensboro

Presenters:

“Flourishing in the Black Metropolis: Toward a Positive Sociology of Race”

Demetrius Miles Murphy, University of Southern California

“Producing and Emplacing Difference: Property Regulation, Spatialization, and Urban Fragmentation in Mexico City”

Sarah Elizabeth Farr, University of Wisconsin-Madison

“White Spacemaking: Race and Urban Change”

Shani Adia Evans, Rice University

“Securityscapes of Colonial Nairobi”

Amanda Cristina Ball, Brown University

CUSS Refereed Roundtables

Tuesday, August 9, 2022

2:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Co-Organizers:

Paige Ambord, University of Notre Dame (paige.ambord@gmail.com)

Grigoris Argeros, Eastern Michigan University (gargeros@emich.edu)

Table 1: Gentrification

Table 2: Affordable Housing

Table 3: Policing and Safety

Table 4: Displacement

Table 5: Cities and COVID-19

Table 6: Responding to COVID-19

Table 7: Cities and Rental Platforms

Table 8: Marginalized Community

Table 9: Infrastructure

Table 10: Residential Mobility and Instability

Table 11: Residential Segregation 1

Table 12: Residential Segregation 2

Table 13: Sports and Cultural Developments

Table 14: Mobilization and Collective Action

Table 15: Money and Resources

Table 16: Informal Housing and Economy

Table 17: Culture and Placemaking

Table 18: Other Urban Issues

Community and Urban Sociology Business Meeting

Tuesday, August 9, 2022

3:00 pm – 3:30 pm

Interview w/ Addams Award Winners Josh Pacewicz and John N. Robinson III

Posted on June 3, 2022 by bwitkovsky Leave a comment

The 2021 Jane Addams Article Award was awarded to Josh Pacewicz and John N. Robinson III for their article “Pocketbook Policing: How Race Shapes Municipal Reliance on Punitive Fines and Fees in the Chicago Suburbs.” Published in Socio-Economic Review in 2021, this article draws on both quantitative and qualitative methods to show how municipal reliance on fines and fees varies across race and class lines in the Chicago suburbs. Josh Pacewicz is Associate Professor of Sociology at Brown University, John N. Robinson III is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Princeton University. Andrew Messamore and Benny Witkovsky reached out to John and Josh to discuss their article and an abridged version of that discussion is below. Thanks to John and Josh for participating in our interview series!

Let’s start by talking about this paper. What did you seek to find? What did you ultimately find?

Robinson: We originally wanted to take an exploratory look at the problem of fines and fees, which had become a big topic of dialogue in the aftermath of Ferguson. Once we got into the data, we saw that these monetary punishments were concentrated in many Black suburbs, and especially relatively affluent ones. For context, the financial penalties that we found in these communities (mostly traffic fines, but also things like fines for overgrown weeds) differed from those we would find in much poorer areas (see, for example, Alexes Harris’ pathbreaking work, which focuses on the penalties associated with criminal prosecution). The racialized effect of fines and fees in the lives of poor households and communities is more dramatic and impactful over the long-term. But our findings on these relatively affluent Black areas show that these communities are in some ways more like poorer Black communities than their affluent white counterparts. Importantly, we also found that the places dealing with these penalties also suffered a range of other issues that white affluent communities didn’t, including exorbitantly high property taxes, exploitative tax incentive schemes, deficient public services, etc.

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