The End Of Village Community Under The Background Of Rapid Urbanization

Official statistics and scholars' case study show that Chinese villages are fading away.However,they only recognize the end of village as the urbanization of village,civilization of villagers and the end of village administrative system;they ignore the dimension of village community.The anther social fact that seems to be opposite is the rise of villages in the city as the development of urbanization.Existing researches only describe the picture of social relationship at this moment and ignore the change of social relationship.On this basis,the study takes village Shen in Shanghai as an example using documentary research,in-depth interview,participatory observation and build a bridge between the research of village community and village in the city to solve a range of problems.First,is there an association between villagers and rural-to-urban immigrants in village Shen.Then,if so,what is life order in village Shen before association and is it a village community.Next,if the answer is affirmative,how village community transformed into association and what was mechanism.Finally,what is relationship between this change and the end of village;what is connation of the end of village.There are four conclusions.Firstly,in terms of geographical boundaries and social relationship,village Shen is a village community during the period of collectivization.In detail,in the light of geographical boundaries,the boundaries of nature,administrative,economic,social and cultural were overlapping and closed.In the view of social relationship,villagers interacted with each other frequently.They built a closely-knit relationship through ritual reciprocity(marriage and house-building)and non-ritual reciprocity including drop around and food sharing.At the same time,relationship between villagers and village cadres was integrative.This relationship not only reflected that village cadres were responsible for villagers and villagers supported village cadres,but also demonstrated that there was a narrow and transparent income difference between them.Secondly,village experienced a series of general institutional change and micro subject action after Reform and Opening.Village community collapsed and became a atomic village.In terms of geographical boundaries,five kinds of boundaries became diffuse and blurry which had a significant impact on the change of social relationship in the village.Villagers seldom interact because of diverse jobs,multiple identities and dispersed place of residence and ritual reciprocity and non-ritual reciprocity is ending.Moreover,villagers become more and more rational and begin to use money to define relationship.The relationship between villagers and village cadres has also ended.They are unfamiliar with each other.The income disparity between villagers and village cadres become larger and invisible.Village cadres are profit brokers and earn high gray income through power rent-seeking which rely on sign a long term contract and low warehousing rent.To summarize,village Shen become an atomic village after Reform and Opening from the whole village during the period of collectivization.Thirdly,the relationship between villagers and rural-to-urban immigrants is generating as the end of the lateral and vertical relationship in the village.There is an association relationship between them.They only have economic transaction and seldom interact with each other.But we cannot rule out the fact that they also have community relationship to some extent.This is determined by the time of place of residence and the character of landlord.Finally,this study argues that the end of village not only means the urbanization of village,civilization of villagers and the disintegration of village administrative system,but also means the end of village community that is substantive content.Therefore,we use village community and village administrative system to define the end of village.The atomic village is the one type of the model of the end of village.This study enriches and amends the existing research on the understanding of the end of the village.