Discursive Practices and the Production of Heterotopias in Urban Renewal

This article examines Lingnan Tiandi (LNTD), a renowned urban renewal project in the city center of Foshan in southern China, as a case study to demonstrate discursive practices and their power of spatial production, thereby enhancing our understanding of urban redevelopment in Chinese cities. Drawing insights from Foucault’s discourse/power perspective of interpretation, this study examines how the discourse system is constructed by actors related to the project, and how power is produced through discursive practices such as representation, dissemination, replacement, and superposition to shape the urban heterotopia during the gentrification process. The planning discourse of state authorities and the developer, through the accumulation, folding, clipping, and abolishment of time, jointly defines the attributes and redevelopment mode of the public space in LNTD, completing the anamorphosis of the city center and producing a space existing in reality but is inverted in order. By actively and positively responding to the discursive practices of state authorities and the developer in a consumerism-oriented manner, the discourse of consumers generates a representation system moving toward the planning discourse. As a set of relations, the discourses of multiple actors are ubiquitous and interwoven in urban renewal projects. They jointly produce the urban heterotopia through the interpretation of meaning and the spatiotemporal splicing of a hybrid cityscape. Unlike previous studies that focused on supply or demand-side mechanisms, we contend that the spatial production power of discourse is a critical socialized force driving the ongoing gentrification in many Chinese cities.