2021 China Fellowship
Spatial Reproduction in Industrial Areas: Study on Chinese Workers’ Spatial Production in Europe

For insight into China’s migrant populations, the “Wenzhou people” offer a compelling case study. My research was inspired by Xiang Biao’s book Transcending Boundaries, which tells of the Wenzhou community’s story in shaping “Zhejiang Village” in Beijing amidst challenges like clearance, expulsion, and demolition. [1] Despite it all, a significant transient population remains, holding onto the dream of establishing a “home away from home” in the capital. Meanwhile, a diaspora has emerged globally, with “Zhejiang Villages” evolving into “China Towns.” Have they truly unlocked a world free from exclusion?

To gain a deeper understanding of the living spaces of the migrant population, I visited Wenzhou Rui'an, Lishui Qingtian, and “Zhejiang Village” in Beijing before my international travels. My overseas research focused on Prato, Italy, and extended to six other cities, where I observed the daily public life of transnational populations—not just Chinese—and interviewed local Chinese residents.

In comparative studies, I noticed gates that embody the Chinese aspiration of “a carp leaping over the Dragon Gate”—akin to the American Dream—and metaphorically represent the "invisible walls" between different ethnicities. Yet, what these gates symbolize may depend upon who is viewing them. The question remains: for whom are these gates metaphorically open, and for whom are they closed? Are the gates welcoming and open to integrating others, or do they symbolize solace in separation?

Finding a Gate: Examining the Spatial Reproduction of Migrant Populations

Home gates, factory gates, city gates, church doors... Can the overseas Chinese workers truly open these barriers separating spaces and share the same public spaces with locals in Europe, achieving integration with the local community? Will the memories of life abroad be reflected in the living spaces of returned overseas Chinese and their cities? I endeavored to explore, through my travels, the motivations, methods, and outcomes of transnational migrants’ spatial reproductive behaviors. Understanding this has particular significance for recognizing the globalized world we live in.

Conclusion

In the living spaces of transnational migrants that I observed, opening the doors to cultural understanding, consumer demand, and religious belief has all positively impacted the equitable use of space. However, the gateways to production spaces, that is, the doors of Chinese-owned factories, are both the most accessible and the most challenging to open in the pursuit of spatial justice.

The integration of the Chinese community in Prato differs significantly from other cities I have observed, largely due to the higher prevalence of Chinese-owned factories. Even as production processes become increasingly standardized, within these factory doors, identity struggles between workers and bosses persist, as well as the dynamics of capitalist exploitation and self-exploitation. Outside, the barrier of language erects a wall that workers with lower educational levels find hard to surmount. The factory is perceived as a crucial arena for social mobility, yet it is also a place that severely restricts workers’ movements and harbors unsettling memories. [2]

My interviewee, Brother Lao Wang, described life in the factory as “a daily routine like a machine—eating, sleeping, and working.” The factory zones, with their dense clusters of buildings, fill the lives of many Chinese residents. Even when industrial facilities in areas like Macrolotto Zero are redeveloped into libraries and co-working spaces, local Chinese rarely venture inside, deterred by signage that is exclusively in Italian. [3]

Transient populations in urban clusters are often considered “strangers within our cities.” [4] While the social categorization as “outsiders” may be an inescapable tag, opening the gates to cultural, consumer, and religious understanding can lead to a more diverse array of scripts being imprinted on these gateways. This helps to lower the barriers posed by language, much like the inclusive signage found under Seville’s Metropol Parasol. It is this kind of approach that gives us hope for a public space that embraces a broader spectrum of diversity.

Notes

[1] Xiang Biao, Transcending Boundaries: Zhejiangcun: The Story of a Migrant Village in Beijing (Leiden: Brill, 2004).

[2] Alejandro Portes and Brandon P. Martinez, “They Are Not All the Same: Immigrant Enterprises, Transnationalism, and Development*,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 46, no. 10 (2020): 1991–2007.

[3] David Fanfani, “Il patrimonio della produzione come infrastruttura territoriale. L’Ecomuseo del Tessile per il territorio di Prato.” In Conservazione e rigenerazione dell’architettura industriale moderna Atti della Giornata di Studio “Il restauro del Moderno. Il patrimonio dell’industria pratese del ‘900. Dalla conservazione alla rigenerazione delle funzioni” (Florence: DIDAPress, 2023), 96–117.

[4] Li Zhang, Strangers in the city: Reconfigurations of space, power, and social networks within China’s floating population (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001).

As a child of a Zhejiang merchant family living on the edge of a big city, I experienced the first spatial production process of a floating population. After reading Transcending Boundaries: Zhejiangcun: The Story of a Migrant Village in Beijing by Xiang Biao, I became more and more interested in the research on spatial reproduction that is being carried out or will be carried out in urban fringe areas. Can spatial reproduction lead to human reproduction from the perspective of “spatial justice”? Can overseas Chinese communities achieve self-identity through urban renewal, value equality in space, and integration with local communities? To be able to clarify the possible answers to the above questions and the relationship between them is the greatest significance of this award to me.
Yunhan Zhu