Beijing from Below: Stories of Marginal Lives in the Capital's Center

by Harriet Evans

"In BEIJING FROM BELOW, Harriet Evans weaves together oral history, archival research, and ethnographic knowledge to tell the story of the residents of Dashalar, an under-resourced Beijing neighborhood adjacent to Tiananmen Square. In popular thinking about China, the Mao and post-Mao development of Beijing's cityscape has often been understood as the result of teleological progression and entrance to a market economy. However, what is lost in such narratives are the effects that development has had on Beijing's urban underclass; for example, during the 1950s, construction projects throughout Beijing led to the mass displacement of many urban dwellers, and current development projects still require the forced movement of residents. In this book, which focuses on events from the 1950s onwards, Evans attends to the experiences of the working-class residents of Dashalar, using their own oral testimony and state records to understand how they interpret and relate to the changing city. In this regard, BEIJING FROM BELOW is a study on the interwoven nature of subaltern lives and state authority, as it seeks to discern subalternity within dominant state systems by shedding light on Beijing's overlooked residents. Through deft readings of the historical record, Evans also reveals how Dashalar's residents have been left out of the historical record, thereby providing an alternative historiography of Beijing outside of the progressive version offered by the People's Republic. This book is organized around the stories of individual families, and each chapter is followed by a critical interlude analyzing the main themes of the family's story. Through these narratives, Evans draws out historical and theoretical topics such reworking traumas from the past in service of surviving the present; the experiences of migrant families in an already under-resourced neighborhood; and the negotiations families and individuals are willing to make to find stability. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of China and Chinese history, anthropology, history, and subaltern studies"--

Genres: China, Nonfiction, History, Anthropology

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2020

About the author

I was born in London and grew up there. I was very bookish, and had a huge imagination which used to cause me to get rather anxious at times. Now I know it's a good thing for a writer to have. I loved musicals, and playing imaginative games, and my Barbie perfume making kit. Most of all I loved reading. I read everything, but I also read lots of things over and over, which I think is so important.

At university I read Classical Studies, which is a great way of finding out that the world doesn't change much and people make the same mistakes but it's interesting to look at why. I was at Bristol, and i loved the city, making new friends, being a new person.

After university I came back to London and got a job in publishing. I loved working in publishing so much, and really felt for the first time in my life that when I spoke people understood what I was saying. Book people are good people. I became an editor after a few years, working with many bestselling novelists, and in 2009 I left to write full time.

I've written 13 novels and several short stories and one Quick Read, which is an excellent way of getting people into reading more. I've acquired a partner and two children along the way.

In 2019 we moved to Bath, out of London, and I am very happy there. We live opposite a hedgerow, and I can be boring about gardening, and there's room for my collection of jumpsuits and all our books. We have lots of books. Apart from anything else they keep the house warm. xxx

Reviews

[Jean · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is structured around 5 interviewees and their families inside various courtyard homes in the district of dashalan, just south of tiananmen square. despite being so close to the imperial seat of power, the living conditions of these low-income and marginalised families are precarious. Their lives are marked by financial and social precarity, most of whom had limited education and opportunities in life.

The stories of these families are told in each chapter that began with a description of their lives, including living condition in the courtyard homes, kinship dynamics, employment, frustrations, employment, and their inevitable re-location. This is followed by the author's more academic/theoretical dissections of the main character that can sometimes be helpful but perhaps a little abstract at times, ranging from a gendered dissection of a single mother and her complicated relationship with patriarchy, while another explored a man's impotence as a husband and son.

Although the stories themselves are interesting and certainly shocking given how recent it is and there is certainly an under-representation of oral history works of the marginalised in China, I would have preferred them to be told more as a verbatim rather than from a third person perspective with seemingly random transliteration of phrases into Chinese. The author also chose to relate certain personal incidents with some of the characters, the intention behind which is unclear and questionable. While I find the dissections sometimes helpful, it would have been more useful for them to be set against a socio-political background in China, rather than a psychological analysis of the interviewee that makes me feel like they had inadvertently agreed to a psychotherapy session without their knowledge, published in a book in a language they don't understand. Overall, the book was a little disappointing and at times repetitive, especially the last chapter.

[astraeus · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best legit sociology book I have read. Dashlar is today one of the landmarks of Old Beijing, and it is very interesting to read about the change of life of the really local residents. History grand narrative is always too grandiose to be applied to individual households, and every individual has their own stories. Very interesting to read.

[Owen Hatherley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sympathetic but very bleak and sombre application of Subaltern Studies to somewhere it isn't usually applied - Beijing in the 2000s and 2010s, specifically the 'old Beijing' historic/slum district of Dashalar, and the people who refused to leave it as gentrification took it over.

[Aina N · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing work by Harriet Evans elaborating on those unfortunate stories from Beijing. my heart completely broke during the fifth chapter about li fuying's story about being a migrant and waidiren looking for a job in beijing. also appreciated the first chapter about dashalar's structure and culture.