Between Struggle and Authoritarianism—Solidarities and Class Fragmentation in Neoliberal Urbanization
摘要
To analyse the potential for political composition in a neoliberalizing neighbourhood, this chapter inquires tenants’ individual, divisive and collective strategies of appropriation vis-à-vis their stratified experiences of residential alienation. I show that neoliberal urbanization predominantly causes class fragmentations, isolating those who experience residential alienation from one another. Anonymization, withdrawal, fluctuation, and limited social encounters are key elements of residential alienation. Fragmentations provide a fertile breeding ground for authoritarian divisions among tenants. Instead of practical collective engagement against experienced injustice, tenants’ cope with their frustration by excluding and blaming others who are even more marginalized. Nevertheless, moments of practical collective appropriation, organization and even struggle occur in the upgrading neighbourhood, contingent on the development of shared belonging. I argue that neoliberal restructuring nourishes class decomposition, as experiences of uneven development of the nation and the city foster fragmentation and ideological appropriation. Meanwhile, solidarity, appropriation and struggle depend on a shared attachment to the changing neighbourhood, for example through attendance of certain spaces or establishing neighbourliness within a commodifying house.