Chinese Sociology and Anthropology: Guest Editors' Introduction

Chinese Sociology and Anthropology

Volumn 39, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 3-9

  Day, Alexander ^a   Hale, Matthew A ^b  

^a WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 37849028927     PISSN: 00094625     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2753/CSA0009-4625390400     Document Type: Review

References (13)

1. For an extended discussion of the intellectual politics of this shift, see Alexander Day, "Return of the Peasant: History, Politics, and the Peasantry in Postsocialist China" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2007), and "The End of the Peasant? New Rural Reconstruction in China," boundary 2 (forthcoming, summer 2008).
2. As indicated by He Xuefeng's contribution to this issue, the state's new campaign to "construct a new socialist countryside" is quite broadly conceived, so scholars of different persuasions are competing to influence the campaign's direction. Chinese readers may note that the Chinese term for "constructing a new socialist countryside" is quite similar to that for "new rural reconstruction." Since the state announced this campaign, NRR advocates now tend to say nongcunjianshe instead of the xiangcun jianshe that they had previously adopted from the early twentiethcentury rural reconstruction movement, thus making the two terms identical except for the word "socialist." Yet He Xuefeng's article should help to clarify the need for separate terms. The state adopted the term "new countryside" (xin nongcun) from the Western-trained economics think-tanker Justin Yifu Lin, who advocates developing rural infrastructure as a stepping stone toward more fully integrating China's rural population into the global market, privatizing land, speeding up urbanization, and so on, positions against which NRR advocates explicitly define themselves, as indicated in the articles by He Xuefeng and Wen Tiejun. But the state campaign is not a simple adoption of Lin's plan; instead, it incorporates elements from various conflicting recommendations, including those of NRR advocates, into a more vaguely conceived vision of development. NRR advocates have taken advantage of the campaign to set up NRR projects under its auspices (see He Huili's contribution to this issue, for example), although some are also wary of cooptation. Finally, the translation oijianshe as "reconstruction" (instead of "construction") follows James Yen's precedent that has been used consistently by NRR advocates whenever an English term has been necessary, whereas the state's sense oijianshe draws on its own Leninist tradition of "socialist construction." So we translate the state campaign as "constructing a new socialist countryside," Lin's plan as "new countryside," and the current introduced in this issue as "New Rural Reconstruction." Whenever NRR advocates have employed the ambivalent phrase nongcun jianshe instead of xiangcun jianshe, we have tried to indicate the discursive politics at play here with the term "rural construction."
3. For information on the first rural reconstruction movement in English, see Guy AIitto, The Last Confucian: Liang Shu-ming and the Chinese Dilemma of Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979),
4. and Charles W. Hayford, To the People: James Yen and Village China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990). Some NRR advocates emphasize the ideas of former rural reconstructionists, such as Liang Shuming and James Yen, as guiding principles for the new movement (see Qiu Jiansheng's contribution to this issue), whereas others are more critical of the earlier movement, drawing more inspiration from overseas models (see below) and certain aspects of Mao-era collectivism. All emphasize that NRR must forge a new path through creative experimentation.
5. The politics and development of this central China "xiangtu" school of rural studies, including its elaboration of the term cunzhi from its earlier meanings of "village autonomy" (xiangcun zizhi) and "villager self-government" (cunmin zizhi) to other spheres of "rural governance" (xiangcun zhili) and social order, are beyond the scope of the present collection. For a basic overview of this school's formation, see Wu Yi et al., "Cunzhi yanjiu de lujing yu zhuti-jian da Ying Xing xiansheng de piping" (The path and subject of rural governance studies: a response to Ying Xing's critique), Kaifang shidai (Open times) 4 (2005): 82-96.
6. In the present issue, He Xuefeng is a representative figure of this school, and Tan Tongxue's article is a good example of its ethnographic style. Two seminal texts of this school are Wu Yi's Cunzhi bianqian zhong de quanwei yu zhixu: 21 shiji Chuandong Shuangcun de biaoda (Authority and order in the transformation of rural governance: twenty-first-century Shuang village in Eastern Sichuan) (Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Science Press, 2002),
7. and He Xuefeng's Xin xiangtu Zhongguo: Zhuanxingqi xiangcun shehui diaocha biji (New xiangtu China: Field notes on rural society in a period of transition) (Guilin: Guangxi Normal University Press, 2003).
8. This school also draws inspiration from Cao Jinqing's now classic report on rural Henan, recently published in English as China Along the Yellow River: Reflections on Rural Society, trans. Nicky Harman and Huang Ruhua (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005).
9. Versions of the reports by He Huili and Qiu Jiansheng translated in this issue were recently published along with reports on ten other experimental sites in Xin nongcun jianshe shijian zhanshi (The practical exploration of rural reconstruction), ed. Wen Tiejun (Beijing: Wenjin chubanshe, 2006).
10. In the interest of space, we have also decided to omit from the present issue examples of this overlap and exchange between NRR and overseas alternative development currents, but this is also an important aspect of NRR. Two key moments of the exchange between Chinese and Indian activists were published as Huang Ping et al., "Duihua - Kalala de the qishi" (Roundtable: The lessons of Kerala), Tianya 4 (2001): 48-57;
11. and Wang Hui et al., "Tantao linglei fazhan de kenengxing-Zhongguo- Yindu xiangcun jianshe jiaoliu nui" (Discussing the possibilities of alternative development: A meeting for rural reconstruction exchange between China and India), Bolan qunshu 1 (2004): 4-22.
12. Sociologist and NRR fellow traveler Huang Ping indicates in a longer, online version of the former transcript that one major attraction of the Kerala movement among left-leaning Chinese intellectuals is that "we all want revolutionary change without a violent, bloody revolution," and that the Kerala model seems to offer the prospect of an effective "reformist revolution (gailiangzhuyi de geming), in both technological and [social] systemic senses." See Huang Ping et al., "Kálala de qishi-Zhongguo zhishifenzi yanzhong de Kálala bang" (The lessons of Kerala: Kerala in the eyes of Chinese intellectuals) (2001), available at www.china-village.org (accessed February 15,2006).
13. Actually, such a division between "theoretical" and "practical" centers would be an oversimplification, since "practical centers" like the Yen Institute and nonacademic activists like Qiu produce abstract theoretical reflections like Qiu's contribution to this issue, and academic centers are directly involved in setting up and investigating the performance of village cooperative projects through both institutional support and voluntary labor by professors and students. The Yen Institute was originally founded under the auspices of Wen's former unit, the Institute for Research on the Reform of China's Economic System, but has since transferred (along with Wen) to Renmin University of China. The other two supporting institutions are Action Aid (UK) and China Social Services and Development Research Centre (HK). Recently NRR activists also founded the Liang Shuming Rural Reconstruction Center on the outskirts of Beijing, also operated under the auspices of Wen's school at Renmin University.