TY - GEN

T1 - Understanding the Unseen

T2 - Approaching Research Practice in Architecture

AU - Pu, Hongxia

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - The phenomenon known as ‘desakota’ recognizes the increasingly blurred distinctions between the rural and the urban in Asian countries. The unprecedented increase in the mobility of the rural population and the influx of migrants have created two types of vulnerable groups in desakota areas at the same time: elderly people who have lost their livelihood and live alone without care, and migrant workers who work in rural enterprises far from their homes. Both groups face the pressures of changing social and spatial structures. Most studies in China only focus on the social justice and care for one group, while ignoring that these two marginalized groups are intensively intermingled and even live in the same physical space. This interconnectedness and complexity requires innovative approaches that enfold dynamic understanding of these two social groups which pose challenges to traditional one-dimensional urban planning approaches. By using both drone filming and on-ground filming as an innovative methodology, this article reinterprets these two marginalized groups in desakota landscapes by shifting perspective between the vast landscape of the desakota and the intimate scale of local lives. Through the lens of a care process, this article emphasizes the need for new relationships between elderly peasants and migrant workers, and between urbanization and rurality in China.

AB - The phenomenon known as ‘desakota’ recognizes the increasingly blurred distinctions between the rural and the urban in Asian countries. The unprecedented increase in the mobility of the rural population and the influx of migrants have created two types of vulnerable groups in desakota areas at the same time: elderly people who have lost their livelihood and live alone without care, and migrant workers who work in rural enterprises far from their homes. Both groups face the pressures of changing social and spatial structures. Most studies in China only focus on the social justice and care for one group, while ignoring that these two marginalized groups are intensively intermingled and even live in the same physical space. This interconnectedness and complexity requires innovative approaches that enfold dynamic understanding of these two social groups which pose challenges to traditional one-dimensional urban planning approaches. By using both drone filming and on-ground filming as an innovative methodology, this article reinterprets these two marginalized groups in desakota landscapes by shifting perspective between the vast landscape of the desakota and the intimate scale of local lives. Through the lens of a care process, this article emphasizes the need for new relationships between elderly peasants and migrant workers, and between urbanization and rurality in China.

M3 - Article in proceedings

SN - 78-3-948278-41-0

BT - MATERIAL PRACTICES

A2 - Schalk, Meike

A2 - Reisinger, Karin

A2 - Markus, Elena

A2 - Leconte, Uta

PB - TUM School of Engineering and Design

Y2 - 13 October 2021 through 14 December 2021

ER -