Speaker: Mengqi Wang, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Duke Kunshan University

This talk presents the vernacular concept of inflexible demand, known as 刚需/gangxu in Chinese, that people in contemporary urban China draw on to refer to—and construct—an absolute need for homeownership for all city dwellers. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in a gangxu development at the urban periphery of east Nanjing from 2013 to 2015, this talk argues that the concept of “inflexible demand” works as an empty signifier bridging diverse value-making projects that are constitutive of China’s housing market. It argues that homeownership, in China, suggests not independence but a further inclusion of citizens within the state. The talk ends with a reflection on how recent changes of the market have rendered homeownership both a promise and a trap for migrants in urban China. The talk is developed from a new book titled Anxious Homes: Inflexible Demand and China’s Housing Market (Cornell University Press 2026).

Mengqi Wang is a cultural and economic anthropologist specialized in the study of housing and the urban environment. She is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Duke Kunshan University with fields of research covering economic anthropology, political economy, human geography, and critical infrastructure studies. Her book, Anxious Homes: Inflexible Demand and China’s Housing Market (Cornell University Press, 2026), is an ethnographic monograph charting the discursive formation of the housing market at East Nanjing’s urban periphery from 2012 to 2015. Her research articles have appeared in journals such as Positions: Asia Critique, the Journal of Cultural Economy, and Urban Studies.

Zoom Meeting Link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/94120080608