Abstract

AbstractA seismic change in the residential pattern is emerging in rural China today: traditional rural houses have been rapidly erased from the face of the countryside with large numbers of peasants being relocated to modern high-rise buildings. This process of “peasant elevation” has had a monumental impact on rural China. It redefines the entitlement to land use by the rural citizenry and negotiations for a new regime of property rights concerning land administration, while, most importantly, it undermines the position of the local state in rural China, whose authority is an aggregation of three distinctive elements: coercive power inherent in the state apparatus, control over economic resources, and resonance with local morality. Based on original data collected in Chongqing, Nantong and Dezhou, this paper argues that the comprehensive uprooting of the Chinese peasantry from the land and the resulting complications have caused moral disorientation among the relocated peasants and fragmentation of local authority. The difficulty in establishing community identity in the new setting has further undermined local governance. This may in turn trigger a wave of social and political tensions that may eventually turn out to be a major political challenge to the regime for years to come.

Highlights

  • A seismic change in the residential pattern is emerging in rural China today: traditional rural houses have been rapidly erased from the face of the countryside with large numbers of peasants being relocated to modern high-rise buildings

  • Legitimacy of the state appears, as Luigi Tomba argues, “as the consequence of one’s assessment of the acceptability of everyday governing practices and of the moral discourses that justify such practices under a variety of material conditions.”2 This grassroots perspective is quintessential for students of Chinese politics as it reminds us of the basic fact that ordinary people see these local officials, as part of the state or cadres and as neighbours, kin and friends

  • Ano less seismic change in the residential pattern is emerging in rural China today: the rise of peasant apartments

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Summary

Enticing Peasants to Move

This perfect scenario hinges upon one thing: peasants’ consent to relocation. In Banan district 巴南区 in Chongqing, if a household is compensated on the basis that each member of the family is entitled to buy 30 square metres of space at a subsidized price, a household of five members is entitled to buy a new unit of 150 square metres. They can either buy a big flat of this size, or two smaller ones.

Entitlement duration
Strengthening of Market Logic
Production and consumption
Social exchange
Impact on Moral Order
Strongly disagree
Danger of Fragmentation of Authority
Fourth age group
Totally unnecessary
Conclusion
Findings
Biographical notes
Full Text
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