Professional Peasants: Case Study Based On Urban Farmers Of H Outskirt

Modern agricultural market economy develops rapidly, which promotesthe reallocation and the dynamic integration of agricultural production factors suchas capital, land and labor. Agricultural enterprises in the urban-rural fringe takeadvantage of owned capital and land to develop agricultural market, which isperceived as the resource platform to attract migrant or local labors to rent agriculturalfacilities and pursue agricultural production so as to establish the farming pattern ofemployment in the form of renting land and growing vegetables. That pattern allowslabors as identity outside the organization to occupy the right to use resources insidethe organization through establishing the relation of work contract with organization.The paper perceives labors engaging in modern agricultural management in that wayas urban farmers, most of whom consist of migrant farmers and few are local farmersand residents. Migrant farmers drain the urban-rural fringe in the form of migration ofthe whole family and establish the relations with urban life in the form ofwork-farming intergenerational separation so that they become permanent immigrantswho do not need to move again from the perspective of objective conditions andsubjective desire. Through description and analysis of migrant farmers’ economicbehavior, mode of life and concept of value and local farmers seen as the referencegroup, the paper attempts to state that the separation between the urban and rural areasbased on household registration in our country has become fuzzy to urban farmergroups, and that neither does local and migrant practitioners separate, nor does closeassociation keep, both of which have homogeneityand independence to indicate thatmixture is more realistic social picture in modern agricultural areas of the urban-ruralfringe. That fuzzy state is more individual separation in the Individualized Societythan separation between the urban and rural areas.Individualization is main theoretical analysis and the perspective of observationin the paper which recognize and understand the urban farmer group. And the research site of the case study is in the urban agricultural park in the southeast farm of H city.Firstly, the paper explores, in the process of Chinese social structure changes andtransformation and individualism with Chinese characteristics, and under thebackground of rapid urbanization, industrialization and agricultural modernization,that the group realizes demands of their own interests and motivation, ability andplight social actions choose which further describe the course shifting fromidentification to professionalism experienced the farmers from the traditional to themodern and the way of farmers’ self-shaping and being shaped in that course;secondly, the paper analyzes the impact of open analysis of the open labor market ofmodern agriculture on the aspects such as urban farmers’ production and operation msocial mobility and concept of life, and observes that social individuals showautonomy and selectivity from the perspective of their employment orientationnetwork reconfiguration of family and social relationship and consciousness of massconsumption; thirdly, on those basis and in the special geographical space of theurban-rural fringe with the characteristics of both city-country and worker-farmer, thepaper studies the conflict and interest restructure among different social groups,explores the internal logic of development of commercial modern agriculture,understand action strategies of social individuals in the process of individualization,and discloses relations among the social transformation, the system changes and thephases of personal life.Most of previous concerns for farmers focus more attention on the managers ofagriculture, rural areas and farmers and the researchers’ position so that the farmersare perceived as objects to be managed, driven and trained, and it is ignored thatfarmers shows their consciousness of rationality and participation in the process ofagricultural marketization. Farmers are mostly be summed up as the followingcharacteristics: low cultural level and comprehensive quality, professional skills andemployment, poor entrepreneurial abilities, conformism, satisfaction with a little bit,self seclusion, conservativeness, etc., which, directly or indirectly, causes labellingthinking to the farmer group in the process of "stigmatization” called to a certainextent, so as to influence the cognition of the objective truth. Regarding the fixedmumber of year of educational attainment as labor quality ignores the fact that labor skills of employed persons outside the system are acquired through informalapproaches of education. Although the positive impact of formal academic educationon people’s process of socialization is undeniable, urban farmers who haven’t receivedhigher education are not just small ones who pursue minimum benefit lost but alsoeconomic rational labors who pursue benefit optimization. Urban farmers’professional abilities depend on the degree of self training and expectations of career.Different levels of self training and career expectations within high and low rangedivide urban farmers into labor groups of different income levels. Those farmers whohave continuous self training consciousness and high professional expectations showstraits of “underlying elites”. Urban farmers’ socialized problems may be transformedinto social ones in a state in which upward mobile normal channels are obstructed inthe long term.As a new professional group, shaping and being shaped of its social roles is stillin the historical process of social changes. In a sense, shaping and being shaped of anysocial role characterize regularization of a kind of social structure and embody a kindof social arrangement. Structured shaping and self-shaping of urban farmer group isan interactive process of cultivation of external force and active involvement ofindividuals. Orientations involved have not only innovation of agricultural economicsystem and marketized adjustments of production and operation of agricultureorganization but also adaptive issues in which urban farmers combine newemployment opportunities with living space in this transformation. In the systematicframework of Urban-rural dual segmentation and different employment system frominside and outside in our country, realization of role reshaping of agricultural labors inthe urban-rural fringe is established in real social base and understand interestdemands of emerging professional group and logic of social actions in the historicalcourse of combing rural land management.