Brutal Ephemerality
Migrant Temporalities on China's Urban Fringe
A temporal perspective to understanding urban governance and social marginalization in urban Beijing
Description
How do you build a hopeful future when your present is designed to be temporary? Brutal Ephemerality reveals that the sprawling urban villages on the edge of megacities such as Beijing aren’t slums that grew by accident. Instead, urban villages are intentionally kept in a state of uncertainty, allowing the city to have a ready supply of cheap land and flexible labor to fuel its rapid growth. Yang Zhan proposes the concept of “migrant venturers” (chuǎngdàng de rén) and argues that “venturing” (chuǎngdàng) represents a distinct survival strategy of mobility, risk-taking, and opportunity seeking, rather than rooting oneself in a specific place or profession. This strategy is an active practice of “future-making”—an effort to project a meaningful future from an uncertain present.
Brutal Ephemerality demonstrates how time is not a neutral backdrop, but the central arena for political struggle, ethical practice, and imaginative creation among marginalized groups. Zhan shows how hope and suffering are paradoxically intertwined, and how the very struggle for a better life can, itself, become a source of harm.
Yang Zhan is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology in the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Reviews
"Grounded on exceptionally rich ethnography and a highly sophisticated conceptual framework, Yang Zhan offers a compelling account of the ethos of rural migrants and of the everyday politics of how they cope with highly adverse predicaments while crafting aspirations for a livable future. A beautifully written and important book."
- Eric Florence, University of Liège
“One of the very best books on migration and urban transformation in China that I have read. Based on two decades of field research, it offers a deeply nuanced account of how people sustain hope amid hardship and navigate profound social change. Its analysis sheds fresh light on multiple contradictions of Chinese society. Highly recommended for anyone interested in contemporary China.”
- Biao Xiang, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
“A poignant and insightful examination of the challenges and achievements of migrants in Beijing, which has China’s harshest exclusionary system. It challenges many assumptions and provides important new ways of thinking about life and time in urban margins.”
- Alan Smart, University of Calgary