Understanding small-holding households in a changing Chinese village
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Date
01/07/2015Author
Wan, Tingting
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Abstract
This thesis looks in detail at four small-holding households in a Chinese village that
is experiencing the rapid industrialisation and urbanisation that has occurred in China
over a number of decades. The research explores the dynamics of the households,
which are at a point where traditional values and modes of living are challenged by
the changing social, economic and cultural context. These small-holding village
households are characterised by an interdependent set of family and household
relationships and an intricate interplay between cultural expectations, resources
dynamics, bonds of affect and economic and social activities. The research draws
upon key literature concerned with household, family and economic life, to analyse
the research data concerning these Chinese village households experiencing change.
The research has been conducted within a narrative inquiry framework, as an
appropriate approach for understanding the processes of adaptation to changes at the
levels of households and individual members: what people do, how they feel, how
they interpret ‘the self’ in the context of social, economic and cultural change, and
how they talk about all of this. Fieldwork was carried out over the period from 2011
to 2014 in the village of Shang (a pseudonym) in the Huangshan area, Anhui
province. In-depth interviews, informal interviews and conversations with household
members were combined with long-term participant observation in the village,
encompassing various households and many social events. The analysis of the
resulting data is provided around three key topics: ‘Divisions of Labour, Household
Work and Changing Economic Life’, ‘Resources and the Household’, and
‘Household and Networks’.
People have a range of different ways of coping with changes, influenced by many
factors including their roles and aspirations and bonds of love and caring; while at
the household level, the different styles and layers of livelihood are influenced by
and in turn influence the organisation of material and particularly non-material
resources in the household. The stories that people tell about their experiences,
feelings and understandings demonstrate that they are actively responding and
adapting to change rather than being passive recipients or resistant to this. Both
change and continuity are witnessed through focusing analysis at both individual and
household levels. Combining ideas about the household as a resource system and a
narrative inquiry approach provides detailed insights on Chinese village households
in their changing social and economic context.