Making space through finance: Spatial conceptions of the rural in China’s rural financial reforms

Abstract

By forming a dialogue between financial and rural geography, this paper explores the co-constitution of rurality and finance. It does so by approaching financial policies as a genre of spatial discourse in which particular spatial imaginaries are reified. Through an examination of China’s rural financial reforms, this paper illustrates how the rural, as a spatial signifier, is imagined and represented in financial policies and how these spatial conceptions of the rural influence financial processes. The paper argues that China’s rural financial reforms are built on ambiguous and contentious notions of rurality. It therefore calls for greater sensitivity toward the discursive dimension of spatial production in financial processes and the varied conceptions and representations of spaces that are the targets of financial intervention.