Understanding Chinese ‘enclave urbanism’ with border theory

Chinese cities have under the catchword ‘enclave urbanism’ been described as patchworks of bounded residential spaces, such as gated communities, migrant enclaves and former work-unit compounds. Prof. Werner Breitung picks up on this argument and tries to develop a deeper understanding of the intra-urban borders separating these enclaves. He shows that these borders are constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed by various bordering processes. Their discussion includes the physical, functional and symbolic aspects of borders, with a focus on the dynamics of debordering and rebordering. The presentation is based on empirical work in several case studies in suburban Guangzhou. It aims at understanding and predicting urban developments as socio-spatial processes, and it demonstrates how border theory can be usefully applied in the study of urban structures and phenomena.