Changing ‘practical consciousness’ of Shanghai’s middle class under covid lockdowns: a residential community’s defiance and mobilization

ABSTRACTDuring the spring 2022 lockdowns in Shanghai, strict implementation of the Zero Covid policy compelled every person residing in Shanghai to confront the agents of the state and the authority behind them to develop a certain kind of practical consciousness and political sentiment – a political judgment of the dynamic reality in everyday life. During the 2-month lockdown, one witnessed both a surprising level of general compliance, as well as sporadic but widespread civil protests. Through an anthropological case study based on observations collected in the author’s own resident community, this article is an attempt to document the experiences of the residents in Shanghai under the lockdowns while examining their practice of self-governance and collective defiance. In addition, focusing on those who are considered to be ‘middle class’, it also examines how they relied on their professionalism to organize themselves in a state of high anxiety, and to make decisions and take action in a precarious and dynamic situation. It analyzes how they demonstrated a kind of ‘practical consciousness’ that initiated change and fragmentation in the collective will through the process of collective action such as negotiation, conflict, and resolution with those representing the power of the authorities. Ultimately, the political sentiments of the Chinese middle class are analyzed in terms of how they might organize their demands of everyday life into political demands and identify their own power through future collective action.KEYWORDS: Shanghai lockdownmiddle classpractical consciousnesspolitical sentiment Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 As opposed to conceptualizing and simplifying ‘big politics,’ ‘political sentiment’ emphasizes that ‘real political sentiment’ requires making targeted judgments about complex situations and implementing its own principles in dynamic response. It is a political judgment of dynamic reality, rooted in sensitivity to those everyday needs and the ability to organize them into political demands.2 ‘Shanghai Release,’ Official Account, March 27, 2022. The announcement reads: ‘From 5:00 pm on March 28 to 5:00 pm on April 1, the east side of Shanghai (Pudong) will be closed for four days … from April 1 at 3:00, it will be in turn of the west side of the city (Puxi). All residents will be tested several rounds for Covid-19. At 3 o’clock on April 5, all closed areas will be reopened. In the controlled areas, the closed-loop will be organized at the level of household, all residents should stay at home, people and vehicles can only enter without leaving the residential community.’3 As in an item of ‘The Citation2022 Shanghai Covid-Citation19 Outbreak’ on Wikipedia, ‘On March 22, two people posted information on a group chat saying Shanghai was about to perform a ‘city closure’ (Chinese: 封城). The next day, the public security bureau of Shanghai investigated both for the crime of posting false information intentionally. On March 26, Wu Fan, the vice-principal of Shanghai Medical College stated that Shanghai would not go into lockdown because of how much the city contributed to the economy of China.’4 The ‘Shanghai release’ explained: ‘Staying-at-home means not to go out of the home, outdoor activities in residential areas such as corridors, underground garages and open-air areas are forbidden, such as walking, gathering and chatting, walking pets, etc. Residents want to take express delivery, throwing garbage, can be assisted by the property managers or volunteers.’5 Source: the 2020 national population census. It is difficult to know exactly how many people lived in the town between April 1 and June 1, but around 400 thousand is a reasonable number. Because before the lockdown, there was no evidence of a large number of people successfully ‘fled’ the city in advance.6 This audio has been censored and blocked in the simplified Chinese network on April 6.7 For example, confirmed with residents in our community, no household in the entire month of April and the first half of May has successfully purchased online individually. The elderly who are not skilled in using smartphones to ‘snap up food’ are also facing a great risk.8 According to the verification afterwards, many of my colleagues also lived in this street and received exactly the same supplies from April 6 to 8.9 The first wave of vegetables and eggs purchased by the group was delivered to the community on April 8, while meat did not enter the community for the first time until April 18.10 In this regard, Xu Lei, the new CEO of JD logistics, posted on his personal account and explained: ‘At the beginning of the lockdown in Shanghai, the city’s depot was closed, and we could still use the Kunshan main warehouse group to support it. Later, the reservoir area in Kunshan was also closed, and the road from Jiangsu to Shanghai was closed. This is no longer what an enterprise can do.’11 ‘Shanghai Jiading,’ Official Account, April 19, 2022: ‘Legal issues related to community group buying during the Covid lockdown.’12 The numerous cases where people found happiness in bitterness were all promoted as ‘positive energy’ during the Shanghai lockdown.13 Shanghai decided to adopt ‘area-separated and batch-separated control’ (Chinese: 分区分批防控) starting on March 28. Since April 1, most areas of Shanghai are under three-level control. The levels includes ‘closed area’ (封控区), ‘control area’ (管控区), and ‘prevention area’ (防控区) and typically spans the size of a residential complex, later (in June) granulizing into individual buildings.14 Actually, this announcement clearly states that ‘automobiles are prohibited on the road, except for those needed for epidemic prevention and control, life support, urban operation, emergency disposal, emergency medical treatment, etc. Traffic control measures are dynamically adjusted according to the situation of epidemic prevention and control.’ This is just another example of inconsistency in policy implementation by grassroots managers during the lockdown, partly due to the ‘dynamically adjusted’ policies during that period.15 The original video had been played more than 5 million times before it was taken down (Yang Citation2022).16 On March 27, the song ‘First Snap Up Groceries, Then Do Nucleic Acid’ (Chinese: 先抢菜，再做核酸) was published on the WeChat Public Account; it got over 100,000 views in the first ten minutes after being published. Afterwards, the three authors renamed the song to ‘Buy Groceries’ and uploaded it to NetEase Cloud Music, where it received more than 200,000 views. See, ‘沪语Rap《买菜》刷屏 上海创作者希望轻松应对疫情_Cati_歌曲_说唱’. www.sohu.com. Economy Observation Newspaper’s Sohu Account.