Rural Governance in Motion: A Political Sociology Analysis of Farmer Migration

Author: Xu Yong et al. / Country:
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2003-10-01
Features: In the villages as sources of outflow, whether the ritual order or the administrative order and its manifestations of orderliness are all based on the lack of mobility of farmers and their attachment to the land. Large-scale farmer mobility would then change the original authority and rules, changing people's behavior concepts and norms, thereby causing a shock to the order. First, farmer mobility changes the characteristics of the "acquaintance society" in rural areas. In the "acquaintance society," "familiarity arises from time, multi-faceted, and frequent contact, creating a sense of intimacy. This feeling is the result of countless small frictions." In the rural society, trust is gained from familiarity,① farmer mobility separates the village from the land. Although many farmers are born and raised in the village, they are no longer attached to it. Most of the migrating farmers are young, and many of them start the path of leaving the village for work after graduating from school. According to Du Ying and others' 1994 sample household survey in Sichuan and Anhui provinces, 6.5% of the out-migrating labor force were under the age of 18.9 For these people, their hometown is just a vague concept. Even those who once farmed at home find it difficult to maintain close ties with their hometown in daily interactions after long-term absence. Their hometown has become a "stranger society" in memory. Due to changes in concepts, when they return to their hometown, they may find it unfamiliar and even more difficult to establish the close, mutually trusting relationships of the past. Second, farmer mobility challenges and questions the established rural authority. Rural authority is based on the rural society. In the rural society, the authority of the elderly is based on their rich agricultural life experience, and the administrative authority is based on the state's power to govern the land and the people attached to it. Farmer mobility changes people's trust and obedience to this rural authority. For farmers who have left their villages, they generally earn more money than at home, and more importantly, the income they earn mainly depends on their knowledge, physical strength, ability, or courage. The rich agricultural life experience of the elderly in their hometown has no meaning for farmers who have left the land. Not only does the elderly's life experience have no reference value, but it also imposes constraints on the adventurous migrating farmers, shaking the sacred status and authority of the elderly. Migration also changes farmers' perceptions of rural administrative authority. In the past, rural administrative authority largely came from their control over more resources, and even over people. Farmer mobility not only means that rural administrative authority cannot arbitrarily control people but also means that the resources they control are decreasing. Generally, farmers who migrate to other places earn more and have more social networks and greater freedom than those who stay at home, which may make some farmers reluctant to obey administrative authority. For example, when we conducted a survey in a village in eastern Sichuan, the village party secretary constantly complained that staying in the village earned too little and that he had "no backbone" when speaking or dealing with matters in front of those who had migrated, and even expressed a willingness to go out to work. A farmer in central Hubei rural areas said that outside, "I am freer than you, no village cadres call me to meetings, scold me, urge me to pay debts, collect fees, and no three neighbors or relatives ask me to help plant or till the fields, how free!"① Third, traditional rural rules are based on the "acquaintance society." In a non-mobile "acquaintance society," people see each other almost every day. On one hand, they are constrained by various rules of human relations, rituals, customs, taboos, etc., and on the other hand, many conflicts can be resolved within rural rules. For village cadres who represent administrative authority, even if they do not exert administrative pressure, villagers must give cadres face to facilitate future matters. At the same time, families, relatives, cadres, and others educate people through various means, passing on various rules and customs to cultivate people's awareness of rules. After farmers migrate, all of this changes. This is because once farmers leave the village, they break away from the control network composed of families, neighbors, and government organizations and enter a state of disorder. They face an unfamiliar environment and must change their original behavior norms. And once they leave their hometown, the rules attached to the land lose their binding and normative force. Fei Xiaotong believed, "The possibility of ritual governance must be based on the premise that tradition can effectively address life problems. The rural society meets this premise, so its order can be maintained by ritual. In a rapidly changing society, the effectiveness of tradition cannot be guaranteed. No matter how effective a way of life was in the past, if the environment changes, no one can any longer respond to new problems with old methods."① Migrating farmers and their hometown people do not see each other almost every day, nor do they form close ties through frequent interactions. The sacredness of rural rules such as human relations, rituals, customs, taboos, and face is therefore shaken. Especially many migrating farmers themselves left the village to escape disputes, making them even less willing to be constrained by the village's rules. Therefore, rural rules are strongly impacted by mobility. Most farmer mobility at the current stage has a "two-sided" characteristic. In terms of production and daily activities, they spend a long time away from the land, and their awareness of rural authority and rules gradually weakens, with some even completely lacking such awareness. In terms of land, household registration, living conditions, etc., their roots are still in their hometowns, and they have not fully integrated into urban and industrial civilization, thus establishing a set of new behavior norms. As a result, their awareness is often in a state of contradiction, and their behavior is often in a state of normlessness, leading to a "rule vacuum." That is, the original authority and rules are challenged, new authority and rules have not been established, or they clash violently with the original rural society, causing a shock to the order. In the villages of outflow, the impact is particularly strong on the order of security. On one hand, through farmer mobility, the contradiction between people and land is alleviated, injecting vitality and dynamism into the village, changing the living conditions, and the overall peace of the village. The field investigation conducted by our research team during the 1999 Spring Festival in Liu Village, Henan, also proved this point. Since the late 1980s, with the large-scale outflow of villagers in Liu Village, there were almost no remaining labor forces in the village, and the villagers who stayed had a lot of agricultural work and household chores to do, so incidents such as unnecessary disputes, petty theft, and fights rarely occurred. Among the 42 migrant workers surveyed, 76.2% believed that after many villagers went out to work, the social atmosphere in their hometown had indeed improved, 16.6% believed that there was no significant change in the social atmosphere after going out, and only 1 person believed that the social atmosphere in their hometown was worse than before. Other villagers in the survey also generally believed that compared to before the large-scale outflow of villagers, the social atmosphere and public security in the village had improved. This shows that while farmer mobility alleviates the contradiction between people and resources (mainly land resources) in the outflowing village, it also reduces the opportunities for interpersonal interaction within the village community, avoiding social conflicts caused by the contradiction between people and land. On the other hand, farmer mobility inevitably breaks the original tranquility, peace, harmony, and stability of the village, severely challenging the normal social life order. First, the vast majority of farmer mobility is to earn money and seek a way out for survival. They not only want to change their own life destiny but also carry the hopes of their families. However, many of them do not easily find stable job opportunities, and some cannot find normal job opportunities at all. To achieve the goal of earning money, a considerable number of them may engage in abnormal or even illegal activities. Such behavior may indeed earn money, or even earn more money. The result of the behavior, however, is that they may bring the mentality of violating laws and regulations back to their hometown, directly impacting the "labor is the father of wealth" and "more labor, more gain; less labor, less gain; no labor, no gain" concepts in the rural society. Western Hubei and eastern Sichuan are large mountainous areas, and the mountain people are very simple but also quite strong. In a non-mobile society, these two aspects can be well coordinated due to the constraints of rural rules. In the 1990s, farmers in both areas migrated on a large scale. They had less education and found it harder to find jobs. To earn money, some of them brought their strong nature to the extreme, believing in an unrestrained philosophy of the strong. When they returned to their hometowns, they still dominated themselves with the habits formed outside, thus impacting the peaceful life order of the village. In some villages, every year during the Spring Festival when the migrating people were about to return home, they took precautions in advance. Even so, the level of social security and public safety in these areas was far lower than before the large-scale farmer mobility. During our field investigations, the local elders were deeply worried that some children they had watched grow up were originally simple, but why did they "change" after going out? Disrespecting and not respecting or even abandoning the elderly have become prominent social problems in these areas. According to official statistics, in the 1990s, the crime rate among rural youth rapidly increased, and a considerable portion of it was related to rural migrants. Among them, crimes such as stealing cattle, agricultural tools, and water conservancy facilities, which infringe on public and private property, accounted for more than 70%.① Second, the rapid expansion of desires after going out. The balance between desires and the ability to satisfy them is a basic condition for social harmony. In the traditional village, although people's living standards were not high, the closed nature of the village also kept people's expectations low, with income determined by expenditure, thrift and saving regarded as life virtues. People's evaluation standards for life were also mainly based on comparisons with the past, and they could achieve a certain psychological balance through historical comparisons. With farmer mobility, their desires expanded rapidly. The places where they worked were basically cities and economically developed areas. These places not only had a higher living standard but were also far richer in lifestyle. Marx once compared the differences between cities and rural areas, believing that: "The city itself shows the concentration of population, production tools, capital, pleasures, and needs; while in the village, what is seen is the complete opposite: isolation and dispersion."② Farmers living in isolated and scattered states faced a rich and novel lifestyle after going out, and their life desires expanded sharply. However, compared to people in cities and developed areas, their income was extremely limited, creating a huge gap and contradiction between their rapidly expanding desires and their very limited ability to satisfy them. Since they had not been integrated into urban civilization, they only encountered the surface of urban civilization. They experienced and felt more of their own life hardships. As a result, there was a sharp conflict between the extravagance of external life and the hardships of internal life.