Contemporary Rural China Research Articles

Rural gentrification, the booming B&B industry and linked migration in China: To what extent can gentrification contribute to rural revitalisation?

AbstractAccompanying the functional transformation of rural areas from productivism to postproductivism, the rural areas with scenic views surrounding megacities are re‐evaluated in terms of their importance as destinations for visitors, especially in the case of booming bed and breakfast (B&B) industry in contemporary rural China. While private investment has generally led to improvements in the physical space and economic development of these villages, there is also concern about the negative effects of rural gentrification, such as the commercialisation of rural space, the alienation of rural culture and the displacement of indigenous residents. This study examines the multifaceted nature of rural gentrification by observing two villages within the Moganshan Mountain area—the birthplace of rural B&Bs in China, and explores how these processes have been leveraged to promote rural revitalisation. Research findings suggest that disparities in original resources and property rights allocation underpinning the B&B industries among the first‐wave gentrifiers and the local villagers, when viewed through the lens of linked migration, may lead to different socioeconomic outcomes. The B&B industry's growth can either be exclusive, primarily favouring gentrifiers, or complementary, fostering mutual benefits and learning opportunities for both gentrifiers and local villagers. Moreover, forming a collaborative network of rural villagers, returning migrants, and external elites can contribute to rural revitalisation through gentrification. These findings contribute to the theoretical understanding of rural gentrification by adding evidence from the Global South and provide insights to inform Chinese rural revitalisation policies, especially alternatives to traditional state‐led revitalisation projects.

Commodity chain as a negotiated process: Empirical analysis of benefit allocation, governance, and powers of upstream and downstream actors in matsutake mushroom trade in Shangri-La, Yunnan Province

The commercialization of non-timber forest products beyond in-house consumption is a strategy for alleviating rural poverty and forest degradation. With the implementation of the ecological civilization program, the Chinese government has explored the value realization mechanism of sustainable ecological products, and many successful cases of agricultural product commercialization have emerged. Focusing on the matsutake of Shangri-La as an example, this study applies both qualitative and quantitative analysis of semi-structured interviews, participatory observation, secondary data collection, and statistical analysis for the dynamics of the matsutake commodity chain construction in the southwest plateau of China to obtain unique insights into contemporary rural China. Specifically, the interrelationships and functional logic of diverse participants in the core process of commodity management were analyzed. We found that the upstream and downstream participants in the matsutake commodity chain are subject to institutional constraints, such as land tenure and non-unified standards, and that markets are crucial to matsutake's trading in Shangri-La. Certain participants along the commodity chain have inefficient information sources, while middlemen have greater autonomy in the matsutake transaction process and a larger profit margin. Additionally, the involvement of the government and non-governmental organizations impacts the preservation of natural resources and the creation of a stable market order, but policies and funds tend to be short-lived. To improve the commodity chain sustainability of non-timber forest products in plateau areas, it is necessary to consider social and cultural factors, ensure the equity of different participants in the commodity chain, and protect traditional local knowledge related to natural resource management.

Performing the self in contemporary rural China: voice from a villager

ABSTRACT This paper provides the voice from a villager who participates in the art-led rural reconstruction in southwest China, and in so doing, to highlight the contemporary vernacular creativity embodied by villagers participating in art. Existing studies tend to understand villagers as merely responsive agents of the state-led or artist-initiated artistic practices, overlooking the inherent agency of villagers in artistic production. Drawing on the individualization thesis in Chinese society, this paper examines the project Yangdeng Art Cooperative in the rural area of Guizhou Province, China with a special focus on the individual perspective of villager Linghu. Findings show how Linghu's quest for self-identity infiltrates the collaborative practices with artists and gives rise to the autobiographic performance that is characterized by everydayness, improvisation, and relationality. Autobiographic performance of Linghu demonstrates an endogenous approach to artistic production and further concretizes a hybrid rurality that is always ongoing.

From the Soil to the Screen: Women Representation in Contemporary Rural China

This research delves into the representation of female characters in contemporary Chinese cinema, focusing on films set in rural and underdeveloped areas between 2010 and 2022. Under the guidance of Professor Luis Duno Gottberg at Rice University, the study scrutinizes the complex interplay between traditional socio-cultural norms and evolving gender perceptions within these cinematic narratives. Central to our inquiry is the exploration of how a distinctly Chinese interpretation of the Male Gaze and entrenched Confucian patriarchal values shape the portrayal of women, signaling a negotiation between historical and cultural influences and modern identities. Employing a qualitative research methodology, this study integrates a comprehensive literature review, focusing on feminist film theory and its application within the Chinese context. Content analysis of selected films is conducted to uncover recurring visual and narrative themes, character development, and gender dynamics.

Rural imaginaries in China's Three Gorges region

In China, “rural” can signal backwardness, poverty, remoteness, and inferiority or, alternatively, a kind of utopia or idyll – an escape from urban pressures. Representations on screen can contribute to shaping an expectation of what the rural should be and thus play a role in facilitating interventionist policies and marginalising certain groups of people and certain activities. In this study we examine on-screen rural imaginaries of the Three Gorges region. We consider representations of rural places and people in the Three Gorges region in recent Chinese films, documentaries, and television shows, from 2005 to 2021. We examine key characters, stories, activities, and places and discuss underlying logics with reference to the dominant political imaginaries of contemporary rural China. Our analysis highlights how on-screen imaginaries are dominated by the urban gaze, and largely reinforce state imaginaries by rendering certain people, modes of farming, and activities invisible. Particularly in recent years, these profoundly limited imaginaries offer little space for alternative understandings of rurality and do discursive work with very real material effects.

Eco-CCUS: A cost-effective pathway towards carbon neutrality in China

Carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies have attracted great expectations to meet carbon neutrality targets by reducing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. However, most of the existing CCUS technologies are based on an industrial approach with disproportionate economic cost and environmental side effects and remain at an early stage of technological development. This study proposed an ecosystem-based CCUS strategy (Eco-CCUS) to exploit the enormous carbon sequestration potential of ecosystems with low economic cost and mature technology. With undeveloped crop residues as feedstock, it was estimated that Eco-CCUS could bring 0.38 Gt CO2 sequestration capacity every year in China (accounting for 36.89% of the CO2 fixation rates of a terrestrial ecosystem) and has a lower economic cost (100.93 ± 9.38 Yuan/tCO2) compared to that of traditional CCUS technologies. Further analysis showed that the low economic cost of Eco-CCUS was closely related to high crop density, low gross domestic product, and medium transportation distance. A Pareto-optimal strategy was employed to help minimize national aggregate economic costs and identify the priority regions during nationwide deployment of Eco-CCUS. Moreover, Eco-CCUS can bring considerable economic benefit for farmers (223.08 ± 19.60 Yuan per capita) with the future highly developed carbon trade market. This study offers a promising and cost-effective technology to help achieve the carbon neutrality goal, contributing to the sustainable economic and ecological development of contemporary rural China.

Articulating relational rurality amidst urbanization: Agency, spatial paradox and the de/reterritorialization of lineage landscapes in contemporary rural China

AbstractThis paper seeks to offer a nuanced understanding of how the rural responds to and speaks back to the urban in the context of increasingly blurred rural‐urban landscapes. The prevailing theorizations remain entrenched in an intellectual impasse that still treats the rural as a residual space or a reactive actor besieged by external urban forces. Using lineage spaces as an empirical lens, this paper delves into rural geographies of lineage landscapes in post‐reform China by articulating rural agencies in more active, non‐lineal ways. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in rural Wenzhou, southeast China, this paper argues that the articulation of rural voices amidst China's urban modernity unveils a spatial paradox of landscape de/reterritorialization at the dimensions of discourse, practice and (trans)locality. We first reveal how official rural discourses de‐territorialize and lessen lineage groups' control over their symbolic buildings while simultaneously opening up opportunities for them to mobilize officially‐sanctioned discourses to expand lineage spaces and reterritorialize their power. Second, we show how villagers embrace the de‐territorializing practice of landscape commodification, which becomes a crucial source of finance for them to perform ritual activities at specific festivals, thereby re‐asserting rural collectivism, sociality and sacredness. Third, we unpack the trans‐local dimension of rural de/reterritorialization by exploring how villagers forge lineage‐based rural networking that transcends space‐time, which paradoxically reinforces the spatial claim for territorializing rural power that is demarcated from urban/modern orientations. We further argue that these multiple spatial processes of rural de/reterritorialization challenge a reactive or neatly‐divided account of rural agency during its engagement with urbanizing relations and processes. In all, this paper offers a more complex, paradoxical account of relational rurality in a rapidly urbanizing China, and foregrounds an agenda towards more ‘inclusive’ rural studies.

Folk soft power in nation-state building: the political use of folk culture in post-Mao China

ABSTRACT Folk culture was typically associated with rural superstitions and feudal norms. It was appropriated by the state and intellectuals to modernize the nation and mobilize the masses to unshackle China from the grip of the imperialist invasion in Republican China, and was later revolutionized to help construct socialist China. However, after being condemned as the Four Olds, folk culture experienced a nationwide revival in post-Mao China. This article explores the official use of folk culture in realizing domestic political goals in post-Mao China, a strategy that I call ‘folk soft power.’ Through a case study of the largest folk art fair in contemporary rural China, I examine how the fair received official endorsements as a social basis for building a socialist spiritual civilization and a harmonious society in the reform era. It was also heritagized as a national intangible cultural heritage (ICH) to create a shared cultural identity in the new millennium. I argue that the Chinese authorities deploy folk soft power to reproduce a people-oriented state and a Chinese nation rooted in folk culture. Folk soft power deliberately makes light of state presence to consolidate regime legitimacy and reorient the meaning of Chineseness.

Rippling: towards untamed domesticity

The paper proposes ‘rippling' as a practice of untamed domesticity that contests the hegemony of the essentialised model of modern nuclear family and its associated domesticity. The conceptualisation of ‘rippling' derives from a context of the dissolved household in contemporary rural China — they are families of China's 285 million floating population who have seen the absence of a middle generation. At the intersection of architecture and anthropology, and with Shigushan village in Wuhan as the primary site of fieldwork since 2015, the point of entry is spatial and ethnographic observations and documentations of everyday practice in and around ordinary self-built family houses. The material traces and empirical evidence manifest a constantly diffused distinction between the domestic and the public, enacted by the rural dissolved household. In this way, the practice of ‘rippling' defies the confinement and codification of domesticity. Importantly, ‘rippling' and ‘dissolving' are a temporary, transient state that has become part of a broader structure rather than an exception. Through inhabiting and altering a multiplicity of spatial, social, and political thresholds, an elastic form of association is enacted, through which the act of mediating between genders, generations, households, neighbours, and the village community is constantly framed, and even spreads to the city through ‘floating’. Spatially stretched from house to territory and temporally coordinated from daily to multi-year cycles, domesticity as such is untamed.

“Male Gaze” or “Power of Display”? Love, Conjugality and Gender in Bridal-Gown Photography in Contemporary Rural China

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a Chinese village and at a wedding planning company, this article analyzes the matrimonial norms and practices, as well as the representation of gender relations, in contemporary rural China. I argue that even though for mass consumption the bridal-gown photography still enables young villagers to have an extraordinary experience that promotes expression of their personal desires. By examining the mise en scène of photographed protagonists, I conclude that the gender relations cannot simply be viewed as male domination, but rather as a more complex hierarchical relationship with a possibility of reversal of power and authority positions in family and social life.

Rethinking dispossession: The livelihood consequences of land expropriation in contemporary rural China

AbstractLand expropriation is a major source of conflict in contemporary rural China. Existing research tends to frame land expropriation as ‘dispossession’—local governments expropriating land to pursue economic growth at the expense of villagers' welfare. However, systematic evidence on the livelihood impacts of land expropriation is limited, which has made assessing this interpretation difficult. This study uses nationally representative longitudinal data to examine the immediate effects of land expropriation on villagers' livelihoods as well as how they evolve over the following years. It finds that households with migrant workers saw significant socio‐economic gains after land expropriation through both increased wage income and government compensation. Households without migrant workers, on the other hand, experienced a small deterioration in their socio‐economic position as their income remained stagnant while their living costs increased. These findings cast a different light on the dispossession thesis not only because a significant portion of the rural population makes socio‐economic gains after land expropriation but also by problematizing assumptions that smallholding agriculture is necessarily the most desirable source of livelihood for villagers. Instead, it calls for attention to villagers' increasingly diversified livelihood strategies, as well as the multifaceted role of the state in the process.

Economic inequalities in contemporary rural China: How does political capital matter?

To assess how the transition from state socialism to a market economy has impacted the social stratification order in China, some prior studies have debated whether the economic privileges of the political redistributors have declined relative to the emerging market elites, while others have examined the coevolution between the two in urban institutional contexts. This study provides new insights into how political capital influences economic inequalities in contemporary rural China by revisiting informal social institutions. Drawing upon a unique nationally representative household survey and using surname sharing with the village cadres to infer shared lineage membership, we find that lineage-based political ties help rural Chinese households to materialize income as well as asset advantages over fellow villagers bereft of such ties. Furthermore, the economic privileges of political connections are larger in villages with lineage groups than those without, and larger for villages of more frequent kin interactions than those of less frequent kin interactions. Our results extend prior findings on the coevolution between political and market elites by going beyond formal institutions and examining grassroots-level evidence in contemporary rural communities.

Issues of Elder Care among Migrant Workers in Contemporary Rural China: Filial Piety Redefined from a Foucauldian Perspective

ABSTRACT This article reports on research that explored rural migrant workers’ experiences of returning to their hometown to provide care for elderly parents diagnosed with cancer. The authors used a culturally integrated approach to Foucauldian discourse analysis to consider how 24 participants narrated their experiences of care in China. The discourse of care demonstrated a strong commitment to filial piety despite their unique care challenges, and this commitment was bolstered by discourses that emphasized how much parents had sacrificed, as well as by a persistent forgetting of experiences or background details that suggested any lack of parental sacrifice in recent Chinese history. Policy implications related to enhancing filial care are discussed.

Active aging in the countryside: Space, place and the performance of leisure–work lifestyles in contemporary rural China

AbstractThis paper explores the performance of active aging by Chinese rural elders amidst rapid rural restructuring. Drawing on a study of combined leisure–work lifestyles of elderly males in rural Wenzhou, southeast China, it highlights the significance of space and place in forming and shaping active aging in the countryside. The wider rural transformation prompted by industrialisation and modernisation provides opportunities for them to (re)make a temple leisure space and an elderly porter centre in/through which they reconfigure everyday practices and aged identities as ‘modern subjects’ and ‘good parents.’ Such reconfiguration is simultaneously shaped by place‐based norms such as ‘living a self‐sufficient later life.’ It is also found that their experiences and practices of active aging are continuously mediated in time‐spaces. This is demonstrated by the influence of spatial openness and proximity and the tempo‐spatial negotiation of past experiences and differences during the performance of active aging. This paper advances a geographical approach to exploring active aging in the countryside and enriches our understanding of active aging in contemporary (rural) China.

Governmentality and Translation: Re-thinking the Cultural Politics of Lineage Landscapes in Contemporary Rural China

AbstractThis paper explores the cultural politics of lineage landscapes in contemporary rural China. Drawing on a combined governmentality/translation approach and ethnographic fieldwork in rural Wenzhou, it examines how the state governs the production of lineage landscapes and how local lineages translate governmental technologies in complex ways. Empirical evidence reveals that the government develops diversified rationalities and modes of governance to direct the (re)construction of lineage landscapes. It is also found that local lineages are skilled at appropriating state discourses and practices as well as enrolling other (non-)human actors, thereby legitimizing their landscape projects of ancestral tombs and memorials. On the ground, they often displace state objectives with the production of their preferred landscape (for example, “chair” tombs). Respectful of ancestors, state agents sometimes turn a blind eye to local displacement; however, while encountering challenges from the higher-level government, they intensify regulation, but lineages still retain the capacity to negotiate with them. With sensitivity to the entanglement of diversified actors and their dynamic interactions, this paper underlines the multiplicity and contingency of state governance and societal responses. It also foregrounds the cultural politics of lineage landscapes as a process of translating governmental technologies characterized by continuous mobilization, displacement and negotiation in a heterogeneous network.

Implementing targeted poverty alleviation: a policy implementation typology

Existing research on the targeted poverty alleviation program in China struggles to explain the dynamics of policy implementation. This article incorporates individual-level factors such as street-level bureaucrats’ discretion and behaviors with institutional elements, thus combining structure-centered and actor-centered approaches. The data utilized is from 19 semi-structured interviews with township officials, local village cadres, and villagers located in an eastern province in China. By identifying and coding the policy perspectives of ‘street-level bureaucrats’ (i.e. village cadres in this case) through a two by two factorial table (combinations of the identifiability and the participation willingness of the target population), this study conceptualizes the policy output of ‘behaviors of implementers’ to categorize the policy implementation outcomes of the program. The four policy implementation patterns identified are supportive policy implementation, passive policy implementation, unsustainable policy implementation, and performative policy implementation. By isolating these four policy implementation patterns, this research provides insights on local governance and policy implementation in contemporary rural China.

Perceiving and Deflecting Everyday Poverty-Related Shame: Evidence from 35 Female Marriage Migrants in Rural China

<p>This research examines how poverty is perceived and deflected by a group of female cross-provincial marriage migrants in contemporary rural China. It presents accounts of poverty-related shame in everyday village life. Known as migrant wives, respondents in this research have experienced both absolute and relative poverty over the course of their lives. The personal lament of insufficiency and the social discourse of poverty respectively underpin internal and external poverty-related shame. Correspondingly, migrant wives employ strategies of recounting misery and redefining identity to normalise their poverty and their stigmatised social image, hoping to mitigate the psychological and social impacts of shame. This research contributes an empirical analysis to our understanding about the origin, manifestation, and impact of povertyrelated shame, which is usually a neglected consideration in poverty studies. It also sheds light on the gender-specified risks, burdens, and social expectation that affect migrant wives’ perception and experience of poverty.</p>

Hygiene, Sociality, and Culture in Contemporary Rural China: The Uncanny New Village, by Lili Lai

Hygiene, Sociality, and Culture in Contemporary Rural China: The Uncanny New Village, by Lili Lai

Changes in treatment status of patients with severe mental illness in rural China, 1994-2015.

Although it is crucial to improve the treatment status of people with severe mental illness (SMI), it is still unknown whether and how socioeconomic development influences their treatment status.AimsTo explore the change in treatment status in people with SMI from 1994 to 2015 in rural China and to examine the factors influencing treatment status in those with SMI. Two mental health surveys using identical methods and ICD-10 were conducted in 1994 and 2015 (population ≥15 years old, n = 152 776) in the same six townships of Xinjin County, Chengdu, China. Compared with 1994, individuals with SMI in 2015 had significantly higher rates of poor family economic status, fewer family caregivers, longer duration of illness, later age at first onset and poor mental status. Participants in 2015 had significantly higher rates of never being treated, taking antipsychotic drugs and ever being admitted to hospital, and lower rates of using traditional Chinese medicine or being treated by traditional/spiritual healers. The factors strongly associated with never being treated included worse mental status (symptoms/social functioning), older age, having no family caregivers and poor family economic status. Socioeconomic development influences the treatment status of people with SMI in contemporary rural China. Relative poverty, having no family caregivers and older age are important factors associated with a worse treatment status. Culture-specific, community-based interventions and targeted poverty-alleviation programmes should be developed to improve the early identification, treatment and recovery of individuals with SMI in rural China.Declaration of interestNone.

Hygiene, Sociality, and Culture in Contemporary Rural China: The Uncanny New Village, by Lili Lai. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016. 247 pp. £85.00 (cloth).

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsHygiene, Sociality, and Culture in Contemporary Rural China: The Uncanny New Village, by Lili Lai. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016. 247 pp. £85.00 (cloth).Andrew B. KipnisAndrew B. KipnisThe Chinese University of Hong Kong Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The China Journal Volume 81January 2019 Published on behalf of the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/700364 Views: 60Total views on this site For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.