“Civilizing” Shanghai: government efforts to cultivate citizenship among impoverished residents tianshu pan

This paper is an ethnographic examination of community-building practices in Bay Bridge, a poor, marginalized neighborhood in Shanghai City, China. Based on field research conducted intermittently between 1998 and 2002, I explore how cadres in neighborhood organizations defined and promoted social and cultural citizenship while dealing with contradictions between the modernizing visions of policymakers and the harsh realities of the city’s marginalized “lower quarters.”