Reshuffling informal governance configurations: Active agency and collective actions in three regenerated neighborhoods in China

Abstract

Informal governance is associated with the collective actions of multi-scalar participants in neighborhood regeneration for the “right to the city”. As an alternative to the unitary state structure, the changing state-market-society relations in China provide fruitful material for understanding the informality in urban governance. Drawing upon Giddens's structuration theory, this paper identifies three interconvertible configurations of informal governance in China's neighborhood regeneration by elaborating on the interaction between community activists' structural constraints and their active agencies. The results are threefold: 1) Collective actions that take place at the community level are often subject to structural constraints, where governance configurations in relation to neighborhood regeneration policymaking are determined by the different disposable resources behind the intersubjective relationships of key actors. 2) The public affected by neighborhood regeneration can facilitate collective self-emancipation through engaging in insurgent practices, mobilizing the community, and creating the commons to escape market and state constraints. 3) Community actions not only shape a collective consciousness among proactive participants but also reflect the subversion of local policies and the reshuffling of informal governance configurations. Echoing the discursive shift towards participatory planning in China, this paper contributes to the literature on informality in urban governance by revealing the trajectories of informal governance reconfiguration through insurgencies, negotiations, and empowerment.