The Case of Dwelling Narrowness

Abstract

This paper illustrates the process of class formation depicted in and through the popular 2009 television drama series Dwelling Narrowness against the backdrop of spectacular accumulation in neo-liberalising urban China. The article points out the lines of tension and affinity that are emerging out of the processes of class formation inside China’s “society of spectacle”: the divide between the aspiring middle class and the working class, and the alliance between the urban middle class, the ruling political class, as well as the domestic and transnational capitalist classes. On the one hand, one witnesses a reified class interests-based hegemonic unity of party-state power holders, domestic private capitalists and transnational capitalists, and the emerging middle class. On the other hand, profound economic divisions and social injustices continue to arouse resistance amongst the working class, which are largely mediated by the Chinese state’s socialist ideological legacies.