Changes in everyday life of rural China: a perspective of mobilities

Abstract

This article aims to examine how rural everyday life has changed in the Chinese context in response to the process of urbanisation. Drawing on a mobilities perspective, changes in everyday life are represented by spatial mobilities and the impacts of social mobilities on them are assessed at a household level. Employing rural survey data for 2007 and 2017 conducted in Jianghan Plain, China, results reveal that everyday life in central rural China has undergone an uneven development and is significantly impacted by social mobilities. As one of the main agricultural production regions in China, the livelihood strategies in the study area have been shifting from full-time farming to part-time farming and non-farm. The effects of the process of social mobilities on working, consuming and leisure mobilities are also unevenly distributed. Our findings suggest that the perspective of everyday life deserves further investigation for its important role in exploring the human–land relationship in a rural context. And the mobilities paradigm can provide an alternative insight into rural restructuring and its social effects.