Heritage-led Gentrification in Beijing: Governance Shifts, Invisible Displacement, and Dynamic Resistance

Abstract

This thesis investigates the socio-political consequences of heritage-led regeneration in Beijing’s historic neighbourhoods. It conceptualises heritage-led regeneration as a governance regime that has succeeded demolition and real estate-driven redevelopment in the city’s historic core. While official discourse frames this shift as a policy innovation grounded in “voluntary relocation”, heritage protection and public interest, the study examines how regeneration is experienced by residents and how it produces new forms of inequality and contestation in practice. Situated at the intersection of gentrification studies, critical heritage studies and development studies, the thesis addresses three interrelated gaps. First, it contributes to the decentring of gentrification theory by examining governance under strong state steering. Second, it advances the theorisation of the social consequences of heritage-led regeneration. Third, it offers a longitudinal analysis of evolving governance arrangements and their cumulative impacts. To this end, it adopts a governance–experience–agency framework to trace how governance shifts shape everyday life and how residents respond within authoritarian constraints. Methodologically, the research draws on constructivist grounded theory and multi-phased qualitative fieldwork conducted between 2022 and 2024, complemented by digital observation from 2023 to 2025. Empirical materials include policy documents, in-depth interviews and online discussions, enabling the analysis of governance transformation, lived experience and resistance as interconnected processes. The findings show that heritage-led regeneration in Beijing is characterised by intensified state intervention and the central role of state-owned enterprises. Heritagisation and tourism function as governance techniques that formalise property regimes, restructure urban space and advance territorial objectives. These processes produce gentrification and what the thesis conceptualises as invisible displacement. Extending insights from migration studies, invisible displacement refers to institutionally normalised and politically obscured forms of dispossession that do not necessarily entail immediate physical relocation. Rather than focusing on visible out-migration, the concept highlights how policy design, voluntariness narratives and compensation regimes conceal the erosion of tenure security, socio-spatial belonging and future dwelling possibilities, resulting in a condition of “inclusive exclusion”. Residents are not passive subjects but develop dynamic repertoires of resistance shaped by China’s socio-political context. At the neighbourhood level, resistance takes the form of everyday complaints, minor obstruction and appeals to local authorities. When confronting state-owned enterprises, residents shift towards digital mobilisation and discursive strategies grounded in rules consciousness, invoking institutional language to legitimise claims within politically acceptable boundaries. Some attempt to escalate grievances through formal petitions, yet such efforts rarely lead to substantive change. Limited dissent is selectively tolerated and channelled, while governance adapts through incremental adjustments rather than structural transformation. In this way, resistance both reveals exclusionary dynamics and becomes incorporated into patterns of adaptive authoritarian resilience. By conceptualising invisible displacement and dynamic resistance under authoritarian governance, the thesis extends gentrification theory beyond frameworks centred on liberal, market-driven urbanism. Through a comparative urbanism perspective and a longitudinal, resident-centred approach, it contributes to a more context-sensitive understanding of urban transformation and state-led regeneration.