“Snail Households”: Containerization of Migrant Housing on Shanghai’s Fringe Minhua Ling Introduction Chinese media has used the term dingzihu 钉子户 (nail household) since the beginning of the 2000s to describe individual households that refuse to leave their dwellings, sometimes even when electricity and water supplies have been cut off, to delay the advance of bulldozers and negotiate with local governments or real estate developers for better compensation. Observers suggest that such confrontational acts represent a new form of consumer citizenship derived from private property ownership after housing reforms (Zhang 2004; Davis 2006). 1 Recent studies of homeowners and their collec- tive actions amid housing-related disputes in big cities also show the central role of private property in shaping right consciousness and identity forma- tion among a rising middle class (Tomba 2005, 2009; Fleischer 2007; Zhang 2010; Qin 2013). positions 30:3 doi 10.1215/10679847-9723724 Copyright 2022 by Duke University Press Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/positions/article-pdf/30/3/549/1615597/549ling.pdf?guestAccessKey=60f6ba8c-2961-41c4-9f86-c37ede652def by CHINESE UNIV OF HONG KONG user on 13 August 2022