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Research Article

Constructing Home at the Margins: Social Resilience and the Geography of Belonging in Beijing's Pi Village

Zhiqiang SunBeijing National Day School*

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract

This study uses critical geography, urban studies, and migration research to explore the social resilience of Pi Village, a peripheral urban village in Beijing, China. It shows how this place characterized by well-established informality persists and generates social resilience over time facing the rising formalization of urban governance. The paper finds a key long-lasting paradox: formal authorities see Pi Village as "illegible" and ignore it, yet residents build a strong sense of home belonging and create strong social infrastructure as a migrant enclave. This happens through bottom-up and collective interactions between state ambivalence, migrant initiative, and grassroots social action. This reveals "home" as a negotiated social and political achievement, not just a physical space. Using mixed methods, the study identifies three key sources of place-based social resilience in Pi Village, namely, economic, governance, and infrastructure. These show how migrant urban villages leverage collective power to formality and the subsequent demolition by developing unique cultural production, economic cooperation, and community governance from the bottom. The conclusion connects these local practices to wider debates on sub-urban spread and citizenship. Ultimately, the study demonstrates how such migrant enclaves, despite exclusion, can become sites of social innovation and long-run resilience – a pathway towards the legitimization of home.

Keywords: social resilience; geography of home; urban informality; migrant enclaves; place attachment
Published: August 27, 2025
DOI: 10.54254/2753-7064/2025.HT26343
Volume: CHR Vol.75
pp. 89-99
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