Domicide,social suffering and symbolic violence in contemporary Shanghai,China

Arguing from a Bourdieusian perspective, this paper reconstructs the notion domicide in order to maintain its critical edge and configure it as an important field of study. Through this, it explores the ways through which local residents in Shanghai lost their homes to the World Expo 2010 and unravels the material and symbolic violence involved in shaping the experiences of unmaking and remaking a home. In doing so, this paper challenges the category of “happy” or “willing” displacees that deliberately, or unintendedly, conceals the perversity of displacement and legitimatizes it as natural or even politically and morally good. It joins the urgent call for treating displacees with greater respect and dignity and for reconsidering our political responsibility given the belated nature of domicide effects.