‘Civilised life’ in filial exemplars pocket park in Chongqing, China

Abstract How is civilised life enacted in everyday urban spaces? While existing research on China’s civilisation project often adopts a political-economic lens, this study takes an ethnomethodological approach to examine how civility emerges through routine park use. Focusing on a pocket park themed around the New 24 Filial Exemplars Action Standard in Chongqing, the analysis shows, first, that the park’s civility is locally redefined through residents’ interpretation of greenery, exercise, and social norms, rather than uniformly reflecting official moral narratives. Second, in a mountainous cityscape, such pocket parks operate not only as fixed leisure sites but also as connective passages, embedding everyday mobility into the spatial fabric of ecological civilisation. By revealing how a small-scale green space becomes a site of reinterpretation and reproduction of civilisational discourse, the paper offers a micro-level perspective that complements macro-level accounts, contributing new insights into the locality and multiplicity of China’s civilisation project.