A Q+A with Anthropologist Philipp Demgenski
and Urban China Seminar co-organizer Li Hou
Philipp Demgenski, Assistant Professor in Anthropology in the Department of Sociology at Zhejiang University, recently gave a talk in the Urban China Seminar series, which is co-presented by the Harvard Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning, and the MIT Sustainable Urbanization Lab. In his talk, Professor Demgenski presented ideas from his book, Seeking a Future for the Past: Space, Power, and Heritage in a Chinese City (Michigan University Press, 2024), which is based on his longterm ethnographic fieldwork in Qingdao, Shandong Province. In this Q+A with Li Hou, Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Professor Demgenski highlights the government’s move away from large-scale demolition to heritage preservation—not always to the delight of local residents.
Most of the research on housing demolition in China has focused on the intense conflict that it often arouses. In more recent years, has the paradigm shifted? How do the dynamics in housing demolition play out nowadays?
Yes, there has been a notable shift over the past decade. China’s urban redevelopment has moved away from large-scale demolition toward so-called incremental change (微改造), which emphasizes heritage preservation and small-scale socio-spatial adjustments. This shift has also changed the socio-political logic of housing demolition and relocation. Regulations now prohibit violent evictions, stress transparency, and require market-based compensation. But that does not mean that redevelopment has actually become fairer or less conflict-ridden.
My research on Qingdao shows that implementing these projects has, in many ways, grown a lot more challenging. The neighborhood I studied was initially labeled an urban slum (棚户区), but later recognized for its historical value. Following the shifting priorities, local officials were tasked with preserving it but lacked the institutional and financial resources to do so effectively and found themselves caught between competing demands: to “get things done” while adhering to softer, preservation-oriented policies. Meanwhile, for many local residents, preservation was not seen as a benefit.
As one of my interlocutors put it, “We don’t care about heritage. We need to survive.” Also, despite compensation being indeed significantly higher than in past projects, dissatisfaction was still widespread, because the payout would rarely be enough to purchase new apartments in the area. Previously, urban renewal was a path to wealth, and many residents saw it as their fundamental right to profit from redevelopment. So, what my research really underscores is that without addressing deeper political-economic issues, efforts to reform urbanization practices will continue to face serious challenges.
The popular understanding of urban development in China is that it happens very rapidly. Was that the case in Qingdao?
Not at all. In fact, redevelopment in Qingdao moved at a sluggish pace, often stalling or being scrapped altogether. When I first started my fieldwork there, I actually set out to study transformation. I moved into the inner city, thinking I would be following the implementation of a newly announced redevelopment project. But it did not take long to realize that the real issue was not rapid change. Instead, the pattern I observed was one of repeated delays and abandoned plans. Between 2011 and 2023, when I conducted fieldwork, three large-scale projects were initiated, but only the last one led to significant spatial changes. Given how much public and academic discourse on urban China focuses on the speed of development, what I encountered in Qingdao seemed almost counterintuitive. But that is precisely what made it so interesting to study. As I dug deeper, I realized these were not just random setbacks—they pointed to structural problems. It was not just a single actor or decision slowing things down. Instead, redevelopment kept getting caught in a web of competing interests: central government mandates; local officials’ career ambitions; municipal economic goals; the push for social stability; and, crucially, local people’s perceptions of, and expectations towards, the government and urban redevelopment. All of these factors clashed in ways that made redevelopment in Qingdao as much about uncertainty as it was about transformation.
Why did you pick Qingdao? Is it the Chinese city—whose impasse in heritage preservation is unique—or just a Chinese city that represents the shifting power dynamics of urban (re)development in China?
First of all, Qingdao is one of the former colonial cities in China that has not been well-covered in the English-language literature. Unlike treaty ports or foreign concessions, Qingdao was essentially built from scratch as a full-fledged German colony—something quite different from the semi-colonial cities that dominate discussions on colonial legacies in China. That got me interested in how its colonial past is being negotiated, incorporated, or, indeed, omitted in contemporary planning and redevelopment projects.
The focus on urban developmental deadlocks is something that matured during fieldwork in response to what I found on site. But Qingdao’s experience is certainly not unique. In fact, it sheds light on broader structural challenges that many cities beyond the major urban hubs of Beijing, Shanghai, or Shenzhen face. Urban megaprojects in these cities are often of national and international significance, but that is precisely why they are not necessarily representative of the realities elsewhere. In Qingdao, I saw a pattern that is common in many cities trying to “catch up” with leading urban centers. Shanghai, for instance, served as an aspirational model for inner-city redevelopment. Yet, the very effort to recreate Shanghai’s Xintiandi ultimately failed because it did not align with Qingdao’s local geography, socio-spatial conditions, or economic realities.
This is not just a Qingdao story; it is a recurring issue in many lower-tiered cities across China. My research does not dispute the importance of fast-paced urban transformation in China, but it offers a different perspective—one that highlights the equally significant but often overlooked struggles of cities where grand visions repeatedly run into deadlocks, especially as the priorities of urban redevelopment are shifting.
Your book, Seeking a Future for the Past, moves beyond commonly applied dichotomies—tensions between local residents as victims and pro-growth coalitions as culprits, for example. Shao Qin’s Shanghai Gone: Domicide and Defiance in a Chinese Megacity elaborates on this dynamic. But your book talks about the “volatile” urban planning process, the “pragmatic activism” of Chinese preservationists, and most interestingly, the “absent presence” of the government—that “the government” is always perceived as somewhere else, often “above” (shangmian 上面). Why do you think this is happening in Qingdao or Chinese cities? What has shaped or changed such behavior patterns?
Shao Qin’s Shanghai Gone has been incredibly inspirational. Her fieldwork captures a period when redevelopment was far more aggressive—demolitions were often violent, and the state and its contracted companies had much greater leeway in using force to remove residents. By the time I conducted my research, the dynamics were shifting. What I observed was a situation where local officials were often just as frustrated as the residents. They were required to follow softer redevelopment priorities, which meant they had limited power to negotiate when residents chose not to sign expropriation agreements. The reasons for non-cooperation were not necessarily tied to corrupt officials or inherently flawed compensation schemes. Often, they were deeply personal, including family disputes, tangled property rights, or legacies of past policies that complicated relocation decisions. My book’s title, Seeking a Future for the Past, reflects this—it is not just about old buildings but about how past arrangements continue to shape the present.
As for the government’s “absent presence,” this is partly due to China’s bureaucratic structure. Officials are appointed and accountable one level up, meaning real decision-making power often feels just out of reach. When I sought government perspectives, I kept being sent “one level up,” only to find that the government I was chasing seemed to vanish. Residents experience the same thing. They would talk about “the government” constantly, but they rarely encountered it in a direct, physical way. This absence, I argue, was an immediate result of the developmental deadlocks, but it also reflects a broader political practice in China—something I explore in my book and hope to examine further in future research.
As a foreign scholar doing over a decade of ethnographic fieldwork in China, what has changed over the years? What are the new challenges, especially in access and ethics? What’s your advice to future scholars in the field of China studies?
That is a really important question. The answer, of course, depends on the nature of one’s project. When I first started fieldwork in 2011, I took a fairly traditional ethnographic approach, just showing up, introducing myself as an anthropologist, and slowly getting to know people through informal chats or by simply “hanging out.” Back then, it was still much easier for a foreign researcher to ask questions without raising eyebrows. But if I was to start the same project today, I think it would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible.
Just a few years ago, I was back in Qingdao’s inner city and, as I had done countless times before, I wandered into a courtyard where a few families still lived. In the past, this would have led to casual conversation, maybe even an invitation inside. But this time, everyone was suspicious. No one wanted to talk. The reasons are probably complex: increasing unease towards foreigners, especially researchers, as well as general caution about disclosing personal information. This is tricky because ethnographic fieldwork is not about data first, it is all about trust. Data comes from trust. My biggest advice for future scholars is to start by thinking about how to build relationships, not just how to collect information. Also, work with trusted individuals within Chinese institutions. Institutional affiliation helps, but it is the relationships within those institutions that really matter. Ultimately, doing good ethnography as a foreign researcher in China today requires a lot more time and effort to develop the kinds of relationships that allow for meaningful data collection.