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Beyond the Workplace: Extractive Governmentality at Home in China’s Coal Mining Areas
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2026
Abstract
In China’s resource-based cities, work and everyday life have historically been shaped by extractive industries. Amid the ongoing restructuring of the coal industry, examining social dynamics beyond labour – particularly those linked to housing, displacement and resettlement – reveals critical mechanisms of power. Based on fieldwork conducted in Datong, Shanxi province, this article introduces the concept of “extractive governmentality at home” to analyse territorialization as a governing technique that shapes miners’ practices and subjectivities. The relocation of miners from unsafe, self-built dwellings to a new urban neighbourhood, built and managed by their coal state-owned enterprise (SOE), reveals a form of corporate power. While resettlement has improved living conditions for most insiders, it has reinforced SOE dependency and highlighted the social marginality of less- or unaffiliated local residents. More recently, the gradual separation of SOEs from their social responsibilities has increased the administrative burdens on local governments, while resettled populations continue to face territorial stigmatization. This article contributes to scholarly debates on China’s “just transition” by underlining the socio-political complexities of housing provision and management in extractive contexts. Beyond the workplace, housing represents an overlooked yet important domain of power in China’s “independent industrial mining areas,” emphasizing inhabiting practices and territorial subjectivities as key elements for understanding the broader transformations induced by coal industry restructuring.
摘要
在中国资源型城市中, 采掘业历来形塑着工作与日常生活的形态。当前煤炭产业重组进程中, 对劳动范畴之外的社会动态—尤其是与住房、搬迁及安置相关的实践—进行考察, 可揭示权力运作的重要机制。本文基于山西大同的田野调查, 提出 “家宅中的开采型治理” 这一概念, 借以分析地方治理模式如何塑造矿工的行为实践与感知。矿工从自建房迁至由国有煤矿企业建造管理的新城区案例, 彰显了企业权力的运作范式。尽管安置项目改善了多数体制内人员的居住条件, 但既强化了对国有企业的依附性, 也凸显了无单位关联的本地居民的社会边缘地位。近年来, 随着国有企业逐步剥离社会职能, 地方政府承接的行政任务日益加重, 而迁居群体仍持续面临地域污名化问题。本文通过揭示采掘情境中住房供给与管理的社会政治复杂性, 为中国 “公正转型” 学术讨论提供新视角。住房作为劳动之外的重要权力场域, 在中国 “独立工矿区” 转型过程中长期被忽视。因此, 矿工的居住实践与感知或将成为理解煤炭产业重组所引发深层变革的关键维度。
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- © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London.
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