Dynamic repertoires of resistance against Beijing’s heritage-led gentrification

Abstract

This paper examines the evolving resistance repertoires within Beijing’s heritage-led gentrification. Drawing on in-depth interviews and digital observation, it traces how residents’ practices shift across changing power configurations, revealing the fluid and spectrum-like dynamics between everyday and rightful resistance under authoritarian governance. In everyday encounters with newcomers, residents rely on verbal complaints, informal disruptions and appeals to local authorities to defend social and spatial order. In confrontations with state-owned enterprises, however, residents deploy discursive strategies on digital platforms. These practices are characterised by “rules consciousness”, as residents mobilise official discourse and platform-specific regulations to legitimise their claims. Online mobilisation has further facilitated collective petitions directed at the central government, signalling the incipient emergence of rightful resistance. Although these efforts have not yet translated into policy change, they have fostered collective identity, psychological support and forms of “digital togetherness”. This study thus contributes to debates on resistance to gentrification by revealing the fluid and genealogical nature of resistance in authoritarian governance in urban China.