Research On Risk And Differentiation Of Landless Farmers During Urbanization

With the rapid development of China's urbanization, the problem of landless farmers' differentiation increasingly becomes prominent. Research on this problem will not only help to grasp the specific process and mechanism of landless farmers' differentiation during China's urbanization, but also help to construct a systematic and dynamic theory frame about this problem and support the government to avoid risks and promote the reasonable differentiation of landless farmers during urbanization.This study will place the problem of landless farmers' differentiation in the macro social background of land expropriation during China's urbanization. The author adopts several basic methods of qualitative research and selects a typical village in Henan province as a case. In this study, the author shows a complete process of landless farmers' differentiation in order to find out the inner drive mechanism which promotes landless farmers' differentiation. Besides that, the author also investigates the changing risks which farmers are experiencing during urbanization in order to find out the inner mechanism of risk changing and the relationship between the risks and differentiation. Following the order of urbanization, the main contents are as follows:First of all, the author investigates farmers' condition of risk and differentiation before the land expropriation. Because of the special relationship between urban and rural areas in our country, this is the coexistence of long-term isolation and limited flows, farmers' identities are very complex in our country and their living condition and risk state show intercommunity and diversity at the same time. Through contrast and analysis, the author finds that farmers' overall risk before the land expropriation is almost invisible, and so is the differentiation among farmers, that is because the differentiation of the boundary is not clear and farmers' identities flow a lot.Secondly, the author analyzes the changes of farmers' risk and differentiation during the land expropriation. In the current system, land expropriation not only brings a great impact to farmers' life, but also changes the farmers' action space and provides the possibilities for farmers' to take actions. Through the analysis of this part, the author finds that due to the unreasonable land requisition and individual subjective actions which create new risk status, the risks of landless farmers increasingly become prominent. Meanwhile, promoted by difference consequences of farmers' actions and social structure and systems, the structure of differentiation among farmers becomes visible.Finally, the author discusses farmers' condition of risk and differentiation after the land expropriation.Landless farmers face an absolute new risk situation after they lose the land. Facing this new challenge, professions and living conditions of landless farmers have undergone significant differentiation and are going toward different directions of urbanization. Through the discussion of this part, the author thinks the risks are flowing to specific groups of farmers and fix on them.The trend of stratification is emerging among landless farmers after the land expropriation.This research comes to the following conclusions:Conclusion1:the differentiation of landless farmers experiences a special process which is from invisible to visible to fixed during urbanization. The inner power to promote this process is from the persistent mutual construction between farmers'subjectivity factors and social structural factors. And the author thinks the inequality among landless farmers increases during this process.Conclusion2:after investing the changing risks during urbanization, the author finds out risks show the same evolution schema as the differentiation and inner mechanism to produce and reproduce risk is also from the mutual construction of farmers'subjectivity factors and social structural factors. That means the process of landless farmers'differentiation is also a process of production and reproduction of risks.Conclusion3:on the basis of the conclusion1and conclusion2, the author goes future and explores the relationship between risks and differentiation of landless farmers, to sum up, there are three points:firstly, the farmers'differentiation and risks are twin phenomena during the land expropriation of China and the common internal power to promote differentiation and risks is from the persistent mutual construction between farmers'subjectivity factors and social structural factors. Secondly, the risks during this process have a symbiotic relationship and change together with the differentiation. Last but not the least, risks can influence and shape the structure of landless farmers' differentiation by its allocation process and the differentiation of landless farmers also can lead the flow path of farmers'risks by its differential operation, so differentiation and risks of landless farmers influence and construct each other mutually.There are three innovations in this research. Firstly, this study discusses the specific process and the inherent mechanism of landless farmers'differentiation, which enriches the empirical study about landless farmers'differentiation.Secondly, through the analysis of risk and differentiation in the specific process, the author tries to explore the theory relationship between risk and differentiation. Last but not the least, the author makes use of a classified and dynamic way to study the problem of landless farmers'differentiation and pays more attention to farmers'subjectivity, so this study also expands the existing approach to the research on landless farmers.