The Issue of ‘Land-lost’ Farmers in the People’s Republic of China: reasons for discontent, actions and claims to legitimacy

Abstract

ABSTRACTBased on an empirical fieldwork study in a central-south municipal city in China, this article discusses the contestation between land-lost farmers and local government in the process of urbanization and land expropriation, focusing on the land-lost farmers’ responses to this process. After a discussion of land-lost farmers’ reasons for discontent and their actions, it is argued that such a contestation is an interaction where land-lost farmers tend to lay claim to their legitimate morality while local government lays claim to its legitimate authority, through the institutional approach of an appeal system provided by the state. The truth is that not only do both sides of the contestation have to rely on the power conferred by the central state, but also they constitute an interdependent local network.