Contrasting migrants' sense of belonging to the city in selected peri-urban neighbourhoods in Beijing

Abstract

The existing literature on migrants' place attachment tends to focus on neighbourhoods. Migrants' sense of belonging to the host city may vary in different residential neighbourhoods. Utilising a survey of selected peri-urban neighbourhoods in Beijing, this paper reveals that migrants with similar socio-economic attributes are grouped in their neighbourhoods. It also demonstrates a spatial dimension of migrants' sense of belonging to the host city. Such variation is created not only by the socio-economic achievement, institutional attainment and social networks; but also because these neighbourhoods are distinctive residential environments for different pathways of social integration. This research contributes to the theoretical debate on the (im)migrant enclave and mixed neighbourhood. Qualitative analysis shows that a low sense of belonging is not necessarily a result of homogenous tenure and residential population, but of living with uncertainty, exclusion from the formal urban economy, and a poor neighbourhood environment. The findings also support the positive role of the social-ethnic mix and tenure heterogeneity in terms of reduced stigmatisation and a sense of privilege and privacy in mixed neighbourhoods.