Peasants’ Action And Rural Norm In Land Exchange Dispute

In rural society, peasants’ actions abide by local logic and norm. Compared with city’s mobility, open and heterogeneity, countryside is a more stable, closed and homogeneity society, which includes the particular norm factors such as the social connections, favor and face. It is the very norms that dominate the people’s behaviors in this society so that people can maintain the relationship in daily life in the community, regulating the order of the rural community in particular form.With the advance of the expansion of urbanization and modernization, however, lands are becoming scarce capitals which are being disputed by peasants.In some villages,lots of peasants exchanged their lands with each other for convenience many years ago. But such harmony relationship is broken, which leads to land exchange dispute.This article describes a "land exchange" dispute case from C village,south of Hainan Province, focusing on the actions and strategies of peasants when they are dealing with the dispute.Then how the norm of rural society works in the dispute can be revealed.Moral norm, religion norm and law norm becomes the weapon used by peasants in the dispute.In action section, this paper gives analytical description of the peasants’ rational and irrational actions in the process of the event, showing their logic attitude and considerations in the field of daily life and court space. In norm section, the article stresses how the internal rural social norms respond to peasants’actions. The rural social norms are dying away in terms of interest, values, violence and anomie. Particularly, how moral norm, religion norm and law norm are grasped and used by peasants will be analyzed.The article concludes that peasants can not preventing and dealing with risks well in the rural modernization process, even confusing logic when they are in different field. The rural grassroots and civil authority is gradually digested as well as the peasants’ rational reconciliation is not yet mature. When facing the operation of law in rural society, peasants are unable to be confirmed.Thus new contract rationality and social norms should be fostered in rural society, and a "no legal order" can be established.