Alternative responses to ‘the modern dream’: the sources and contradictions of Rural Reconstruction in China
2011; Routledge; Volume: 12; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/14649373.2011.578809
ISSN1469-8447
Autores Tópico(s)Vietnamese History and Culture Studies
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Translator's note: In consultation with the authors, this translation has abridged the original Chinese essay to about one third of its original length and added excerpts from another essay by the same authors: 'From sannong to Rural Reconstruction: the plight of a century-long "modern dream" in rural China, and responses thereto' (Du and Pan 2010 Du, Jie and Pan, Jia'en 杜洁、潘家恩 (2010) 'From sannong to Rural Reconstruction: the plight of a century-long "modern dream" in rural China, and responses thereto' '从"三农问题"到乡村建设——百年"现代梦"在中国农村的现实处境与反应', paper presented at the Forum on the Thought of China's Youth in Bo'ao, Hainan, 28–30 August. [Google Scholar]). Translator's note: In a footnote to an English summary of Wen Tiejun's study of the nature and origins of China's 'rural problem in three dimensions' (sannong wenti), he explains that this formulation highlights that 'rural problems cannot be simply treated as an agricultural issue, but are interrelated with rural people (nongmin) (income/migrant/etc), society (nongcun) (social capital development and multiple socioeconomic and political issues), and production (nongye) (agricultural vertical integration/township and village enterprises development)' (Wen 2001 Wen, Tiejun. 2001. Centenary reflections on the "three dimensional problem" of rural China. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 2(2): 287–295. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]: 295). For example, Liang Shuming's Village Government Academy in Henan, Tao Xingzhi's Experimental Rural Normal School in Jiangsu, and Wen Tiejun's Yen Institute for Rural Reconstruction in Hebei were all closed prematurely under controversial circumstances after no more than four years of operation, and James Yen's Ding County Experiment was cut short by the Japanese invasion. All these cases have been used as evidence of the movement's 'failure.' Translator's note: In the present text, the authors use the term 'Rural Reconstruction' to refer to both the 1920s–1930s rural populist movement associated with Liang Shuming et al., and the post-2002 New Rural Reconstruction movement associated with Wen Tiejun et al., which the authors interpret as a second wave of the same movement. For more English-language background on the former, see Alitto (1986) Alitto, Guy. 1986. The Last Confucian: Liang Shu-ming and the Dilemma of Chinese Modernity, Berkeley: University of California. [Google Scholar] and Hayford (1990) Hayford, Charles. 1990. To the People: James Yen and Village China, New York: Columbia University Press. [Google Scholar]. On the New Rural Reconstruction movement, see Day and Hale (2007) Day, Alexander and Hale, Matthew A. (eds) (2007) Chinese Sociology and Anthropology 39(4), Summer. [Google Scholar]; Day (2008) Day, Alexander. 2008. The end of the peasant? New Rural Reconstruction in China. boundary 2, 35(2): 49–73. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; and Wang Ximing (2009) Wang, Ximing. 2009. Seniors' organizations in China's new rural reconstruction: experiments in Hubei and Henan. Matthew A. Hale (trans.), Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 10(1): 138–153 [Google Scholar]. Translator's note: These quotations were both titles of writings by Wen Tiejun. In English, see Wen (2007) Wen, Tiejun. 2007. Deconstructing modernization. Chinese Sociology and Anthropology, 39(4): 10–25. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. Translator's note: Stimulating rural consumption to mitigate the crisis of capital is central to Justin Yifu Lin's proposals for rural development, which have greatly influenced China's state policy (including the broad 'New Socialist Countryside' program). New Rural Reconstruction advocates such as Wen Tiejun and He Xuefeng often frame their alternative, 'community-centered' visions of rural development in contrast with Lin's capital-centered vision. See He (2007) He, Xuefeng. 2007. New Rural Construction and the Chinese path. Chinese Sociology and Anthropology, 39(4): 26–38. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar] and Day (2007 Day, Alexander (2007) 'Return of the peasant: history, politics, and the peasantry in postsocialist China', PhD dissertation, Department of History, University of California, Santa Cruz. [Google Scholar]: 223–235). Translator's note: A focus of rural development in many peri-urban areas has been tourism and recreation. On this see, for example, Park (2009) Park, Choong-Hwan (2009) 'Delights in farm guesthouses: Nongjiale tourism, rural development and the regime of leisure-pleasure in post-Mao China', PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara. [Google Scholar]. Translator's note: This paragraph is paraphrased with permission from Yuen (n.d.) Yuen, Cynthia (n.d.) 'Beyond left and right: the Rural Reconstruction movement in China since the 1990s', unpublished manuscript. [Google Scholar]. Alitto (1986) Alitto, Guy. 1986. The Last Confucian: Liang Shu-ming and the Dilemma of Chinese Modernity, Berkeley: University of California. [Google Scholar] (translated from page 248 of the Chinese version). Here the term 'difficulty' (nanchu) refers to Liang Shuming's famous lecture 'Our two major difficulties' (Liang 2005b Liang, Shuming 梁漱溟 (2005b) 'Our two major difficulties' '我们的两大难处'. In The Complete Works of Liang Shuming 梁漱溟全集, vol. 2, Jinan: Shandong People's Press 山东人民出版社, 573–585. [Google Scholar]). This lecture is commonly interpreted as an admission of the movement's failure, but we believe that here Liang is emphasizing that these 'difficulties' are surmountable problems that any endeavor must encounter at some point. Translator's note: The title of this book could also be translated as 'Rural Reconstruction,' but both words are different from the Chinese term used by Liang Shuming et al. for their movement. The baojia system was a military system first established during the Song Dynasty. The Guomindang adopted this system as a means for local administration of urban and rural residents. In 1932, Chiang Kai-shek issued a decree to enact the system in Henan, Hubei and Anhui, designating ten households as one jia with one leader, and ten jia as one bao with one leader. The system facilitated supervision among households and corvée. In 1934, the Guomindang extended this system throughout the territory under its control. Wen Tiejun commented that, before the Japanese invasion in 1937 'stamped out' the Republican wave of the Rural Reconstruction movement, the Guomindang's nationwide implementation of the baojia system in 1934 had already closed off the space for its development. This mission can be seen in the title of Liang Shuming's book The Final Awakening of China's National Self-Salvation Movement (1932), and in the alternate title of his book The Theory of Rural Reconstruction: The Future of the Chinese Nation (2005a). Additional informationNotes on contributorsPan Jia'en(Translated by Matthew A. HALE)Du Jie(Translated by Matthew A. HALE)
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