Land Grabs in China and India: Variations of Neoliberalism?

China and India have become the epicenter of world urbanization since the last quarter of the 20^th century. The large-scale and break-neck urbanization has posed severe governance challenges. Despite this unprecedented scale of urbanization, how Chinese and Indian cities are governed is not well understood and theorized. The existing theoretical work on urban governance rests heavily on the deindustrialization and economic restructuring in North America and West Europe in the second half of the 20th century. But Chinese and Indian cities do not fit neatly in the narrative of post-Fordism, late capitalism, and neoliberalization. Drawing upon fieldwork on land acquisition in Guangzhou and Kolkata metro regions, this talk discusses how the inherited forms of urban governance collide with neoliberal reforms, and how they shape citizens' struggle over housing, land, and environmental rights. I argue the urban processes in China and India have to be theorized in their own terms, instead of being interpreted as "variations of neoliberalism". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]