Strangers in the City: Reconfigurations of Space, Power, and Social Networks Within China's Floating Population

With rapid commercialization, a booming urban economy, and the relaxation of state migration policies, over 100 million peasants, known as China's 'floating population,' have streamed into large cities seeking employment and a better life. This massive flow of rural migrants directly challenges Chinese socialist modes of state control. This book traces the profound transformations of space, power relations, and social networks within a mobile population that has broken through the constraints of the government's household registration system. The author explores this important social change through a detailed ethnographic account of the construction, destruction, and eventual reconstruction of the largest…