In today’s China, the general transformation of the urban landscape goes with the invention of lifestyles. At the end of the 1990s, the work unit (danwei) system faded; the city is now characterized by the separation of the workplace from the residence place. Following the « neighbourhood community building » (shequ jianshe) reform, the residents’ committee (jumin weiyuanhui) – the lowest level of urban administration – transforms and participates in the invention of local government. Hired and supervised by the urban administration, the residents'' committee employees are in charge of implementing public policies (household registry system, family planning, welfare programs), organizing cultural activities and mediating conflicts. Based on ethnographic investigations in the Chinese city, this paper associates political theory and urban microsociology in order to grasp the dynamics of social interactions at the grassroots level, especially the relationships between municipality operators on the ground and the inhabitants in contrasted neighbourhoods in the city of Beijing. The microsociological analysis consists in a field of experimentation in order to think more general issues in a so-called "authoritarian" regime, based on references to Foucault, Elias and Goffman. This flexible theoretical framework allows to study social configurations at the local level, and thus to shed light on lifestyles, speeches and social practices of urban daily life. Social control is much based on normalization processes ; but various tactics of resistance also appear in conflicts which redefine the meaning of home-ownership and of the quality of life. This methodology offers perspectives on government « from below » in China. In spite of the apparent domination of the CCP and the perpetuation of the political regime, the reinvention of local government is a multiple, dynamic, paradoxical and uncertain process.
