Survival and Development: A Social-Spatial Analysis of Chinese Farmers' Development

Author: Yan Xinming
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-12-01
Features: Time and space are fundamental elements for people to achieve survival and development. Due to their "fundamental" nature, they are sometimes overlooked. If examined deeply, however, they are found to be difficult to grasp, as Augustine once famously said about time: "I knew it well until someone asked me to explain it, and then I was lost." This book takes the relationship between time and space as a starting point to study the fundamental issue of Chinese farmers—survival and development. It is a novel work in the study of farmer issues and provides a fresh perspective for researchers of farmer issues and development sociology.
[Preface]
The order of time and space is two fundamental elements for people to achieve survival and development. Due to their "fundamental" nature, they are sometimes overlooked. If examined deeply, however, they are found to be difficult to grasp, as Augustine (Aurelius Augustinus) once famously said about time: "I knew it well until someone asked me to explain it, and then I was lost." For a long time, natural sciences and philosophy have conducted in-depth research on the characteristics of time and space and have achieved fruitful results. The study of time and space by natural sciences and philosophy has inspired and motivated social sciences, especially sociology. However, this inspirational effect has been greatly reduced due to the complexity of social time and social space, leading to the tendency to detach the spatial and temporal characteristics of social phenomena when studying them. Or, as Anthony Giddens put it, most sociologists merely regard time and space as the environment of action without questioning the notion of time as a measurable clock time, a concept that is merely a product of modern Western culture.
Apart from some recent works involving geography and planning, social scientists have failed to construct their social theories around the spatial and temporal extension of social systems (with the exception of Giddens), yet the spatiotemporal constitution of social systems is one of the core aspects of social theory. Therefore, sociological time and space are not the same as philosophical or physical time and space; they are social time and social space. The significance of spatiotemporal characteristics for social life and social processes far exceeds that for natural phenomena. Ignoring spatiotemporal characteristics inevitably leads to the use of simpler and coarser methods to study social phenomena. For social phenomena, time and space are both external and internal. Although we often talk about "heaven and earth" and "space" in daily life, we generally refer to physical space rather than social space. Social space plays a prerequisite role in shaping social action, social life, and social processes. Without social space, people's social action cannot form, and personal time cannot be transformed into social time, resulting in wasted time.
Although, empirically, one can observe and describe social phenomena using calendar time, calendar time is essentially natural time (divided based on the relative motion of the sun, moon, and Earth), not social time. Social time is an intrinsic factor of social phenomena and plays a constitutive role in shaping social action, social life, and social processes. Therefore, spatiotemporal characteristics become an important dimension for understanding society, especially for the study of social development.
Now presented to the readers is Yan Xinming's Survival and Development—A Sociospatial Analysis of Chinese Farmers' Development, a doctoral dissertation written specifically on the sociospatial aspects of farmer development. Benjamin Franklin, an American, said, "Time is money." However, this saying does not apply to Chinese farmers. Yan Xinming's doctoral dissertation takes this as its starting point, pointing out that while the physical space of a farmer's "three mu of land" is not small, the social space for farming is limited because the land can only absorb a finite amount of labor. A significant portion of farmers' time cannot be converted into socially recognized time. If farmers are confined to their "three mu of land," they can only possess a survival-oriented sociospatial context, which is evident during the People's Commune period. On the other hand, "the city is social space," and it is easy for people to find activity spaces and domains in the city, converting their time into social time. This is also the fundamental reason why farmers moved to cities after the reform and opening-up.
The "time is money" mentioned by Franklin clearly refers not to physical time but to time with exchange value and the ability to earn income, which is the concept of social time that the book attempts to define. In rural China, there is a vivid saying about farmers' time allocation: "One month for the New Year, three months for farming, and eight months for leisure." Although visiting relatives and friends during the New Year and other leisure activities have certain meanings for farmers, their social time is still limited to only three months. Although China has a large population, especially a large number of farmers, due to their limited social time and low quality, they earn very little money.
After reviewing the concepts of social time and social space from prominent sociologists, Yan Xinming's doctoral dissertation attempts to define these concepts. Social time refers to paid work time. Considering the actual conditions of rural China, we define production and work time with income (cash or in-kind) as social time, referring to activity spaces or domains where people can gain economic benefits, including survival-oriented social space, development-oriented social space, and symbolic social space.
In Chapter, the book analyzes how the institutional arrangements of the People's Commune system limited most farmers to only survival-oriented sociospatial contexts. In Chapter 2, it examines how, after the reform and opening-up, farmers gained development-oriented sociospatial contexts by establishing town and village enterprises in rural areas. In Chapter 3, it explores how, after the reform and opening-up, farmers acquired development-oriented sociospatial contexts by working and doing business in cities. In Chapter 4, it analyzes the impact of the urban household registration system, a symbolic social space, on farmers' access to sociospatial contexts and the current pathways for farmers to obtain such contexts.
Yan Xinming's doctoral dissertation introduces several innovations:
(1) It defines the state where farmers possess only survival-oriented sociospatial contexts but lack development-oriented ones as the "pot plant" effect. Just as plants in a pot are limited by the soil, nutrients, and water within it, preventing them from growing, farmers in a similar state, constrained by institutional limitations, lack social space for development. Even if they have multifaceted social action capabilities, they cannot form social action, and their personal time cannot be converted into social time, resulting in wasted time. Farmers' survival state is similar to that of pot plants—living but not developing.
(2) Due to the institutional design of the People's Commune, which did not consider the human nature of farmers—maximizing their social time—farmers chose to invest less social time when they could only share it equally, leading to the "green space tragedy" phenomenon (in life, builders of green spaces often ignore human nature, either allowing it to run rampant and destroy the green space or incurring unnecessary social costs to maintain it. The author defines this phenomenon as the "green space tragedy." The dissolution of the People's Commune was actually the result of farmers' pursuit of their own social time and interests, which also resolves the "green space tragedy."
(3) After the reform and opening-up, farmers gained development-oriented sociospatial contexts by establishing town and village enterprises and working and doing business in cities. The popular terms "farmer entrepreneurs" and "farmer workers" reflect that, due to the lack of urban symbolic social space, farmers must go through a "status contract" stage during the transition from "status to contract." This transformation process is generally "from status to 'status contract' to contract." With the reform of the household registration system, "farmer entrepreneurs" and "farmer workers" have dropped the "farmer" label, becoming "entrepreneurs" and "workers," only then truly entering the "contract" stage.
(4) Currently, farmers still face many constraints when seeking development-oriented sociospatial contexts. For example, the existence of the household registration system prevents farmers from competing for employment opportunities on the same level as urban residents. The presence of industry monopolies also restricts the operations of businesses owned by farmers, even after promising "national treatment" to foreign enterprises, domestic private enterprises still struggle to secure "national treatment" within their own country. Many CEOs of private enterprises are farmers or of farming backgrounds, and their employees are predominantly farmers.
Over 20 years of reform and opening-up have proven that industries with high social space openness develop more fully, bringing significant benefits to individuals, society, and the nation. Conversely, industries with low social space openness develop more slowly, as monopolies often protect inefficiency. Based on this, the author calls on the state to further open up social space, especially for the hundreds of millions of farmers.
In summary, this book is a novel and insightful work in the study of farmer issues, offering a fresh perspective on social time and social space and conducting a certain depth of exploration, which can serve as a reference for researchers of farmer issues and development sociology. Of course, as the concepts of social time and social space are still evolving, the author's attempt to apply the concept of sociospatial context to the development of the specific group of farmers may inevitably have biases, and the relevant theories require further refinement in the future.