NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute (EAPSI) for FY 2013 in China

Tynen Sarah E, Boulder CO

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds Sarah Tynen of University of Colorado to conduct a research project in the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences area during the summer of 2013 at Nanjing University in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China. The project title is "(In)Visible Boundaries: Socioeconomic Identity in the Urban Landscape of China." The host scientist is Professor Wang Hongyang. Variegated types of neighborhood governance and markedly differentiated urban landscapes are growing trends that geographically separate the lower, middle, and upper classes in China. In this way, striking differences in the landscape between low-income and high-income neighborhoods mark visible and invisible boundaries in the built and social environments. The study takes a spatial science approach to examining urban redevelopment using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) combined with ethnographic research methods in order to most appropriately address the uneven geographies of housing development. For the GIS analysis, the project combines an analysis of land-use change with a study of urban zoning, neighborhood, and demographic data layers to examine socioeconomic segregation. The ethnographic research methods, especially semi-structured interviews, explore how the urban landscape exacerbates class insecurity and reinforces residents' efforts to establish socio-spatial identity. This research examines the popular rhetoric that justifies social stratification through the personal narratives and experiences of gated community and dilapidated neighborhood residents. The research is based on the hypothesis that the inclusion and exclusion of residents are created by interactions among many actors, not as a unidirectional process between individuals but instead on multiscalar institutional and societal levels. The intellectual merit of this research is significant in advancing the conventional boundary studies found in political geography by looking at the contradictions between various actors in the construction of class and social boundaries on a local level as reflected in the urban landscape. Broader impacts of an EAPSI fellowship include providing the Fellow a first-hand research experience outside the U.S.; an introduction to the science, science policy, and scientific infrastructure of the respective location; and an orientation to the society, culture and language. These activities meet the NSF goal to educate for international collaborations early in the career of its scientists, engineers, and educators, thus ensuring a globally aware U.S. scientific workforce. Furthermore, the broader impacts of the proposed research include promoting increased knowledge of the connection between economic development and inter-group tensions on a local scale. The research is contextualized in the broader global processes of increased mobility of capital to engage with debates that address questions of political economy in a world with increased globalization. This is relevant to both urban U.S. and urban China, where the research will build on the existing literature on economic development in the contestation between social classes for urban space. Chinese urban development is following the American model of the entrepreneurial city, but China's unique regulatory climate of political economy creates a built environment that is not yet fully understood. By addressing questions of segregation, economic development, and identity formation on the local scale in urban China, the research contributes to a broader academic understanding of the impacts of income inequality and uneven spatial development. The broader impacts of this research therefore illuminate the effect of institutionalized development efforts to simultaneously regulate and deregulate various urban spaces based on social status and household income. Furthermore, the research will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for publication.