"The Politics of Relocation: Demolition and Resettlement in Shanghai and Mumbai." -- February 11, 2019, Goldwin Smith Hall
The Cornell Contemporary China Institute's (CCCI) Spring 2019 lecture series started off strong with a talk by Mark Frazier, the Director of the New School's India China Institute (ICI). Established in 2005, the ICI engages in critical inquires involving China, India, and the United States. This talk was based on Frazier's upcoming book The Power of Place: Contentious Politics on Twentieth-Century Shanghai and Bombay (published by Cambridge University Press), which examines present-day questions of informal housing, de-industrialization, and citizenship in a historical context. In the process of writing the book, Frazier conducted interviews in China and India, studied recent statistics, and thoroughly examined first-person accounts of historical protests. The lecture attracted students of all backgrounds; CAPS majors, Chinese international students, and interested faculty.
Frazier emphasized the past and present role of "contentious politics," defined as citizens going outside of the traditional political channels to make changes. Despite China and India's drastically different political systems, Frazier noted that both countries had eerily similar urban housing problems and political successes of grassroots protests. Frazier informed that, as Mumbai and Shanghai want to open up more land for commercial use, they dispossess the city's poorest and only give them some form of compensation. This compensation is extremely controversial because, even though their new homes are of significantly higher quality, their right to citizenship in the city is threatened. The talk concluded that the politics of this seemingly specific issue informs politics of the neighborhood, the workplace, and of Mumbai and Shanghai's basic internal functions.
The CCCI's Lecture Series occurs every Monday from 4:30-6:00 pm in G64 (Lewis Auditorium) Goldwin Smith Hall. Visit the Cornell East Asia program's website for more information.
