Center and Periphery: Cultural Identity and Localism of the Southern Chinese Peasantry

Abstract

The loosening of political control in rural South China after 1978 was bound to encourage the growth of pre-communist practices and customs. The basic assumption of this article is that the nature of southern Chinese peasant localism has not changed fundamentally over the past decades of communist rule. Southern Chinese peasant localism has shown a remarkable degree of persistence under communist rule; this article will therefore attempt to fill a theoretical vacuum in the study of the southern Chinese peasantry by introducing the view that peasant localism is based on a concept of cultural territory. The geocultural nexus of peasant localism is itseiffounded on the trinity of lineage, religion, and dialect. With the interrelations among these three cultural variables, peasant localism is viewed as the bastion of a web of peasant culture, defending local communities from the intrusion of the state.