Home To Return:a Study On Transmigrants' Practices In Homeland,Qingtian

Based on ethnographic study in Xingcun village,a mountainous qiaoxiang community in Qingtian,Zhejiang,China,this dissertation attempts to interpret migrants' transnational practices in homeland from the perspective of sang zi ??,a Confucian poetic expression of homeland.The source meanings of sang zi is traced back to Chinese Classics SHE KING(the Book of Poetry),I Ching(The Changes),and Shang Shu(The Book of History).Sang(the mulberry tree)in Classics is interpreted as rootedness and zi(the catalpa tree)as ways of being sons.Generations of scholars in pre-modern China have cited and(re)interpreted sang zi,thus endowing rich connotations to homeland culture.Through textual exegesis,three interrelated meanings of sang zi culture are decoded:1)sang zi as ancestors;2)sang zi as legacy;3)sang zi as li(ritual).This threefold framework of sang zi culture is operated to investigate migrants' transnational practices in Xingcun village,focusing on out migration,social remittances,ritual performances and ancestral house management.Immobility in Xingcun is experienced as a form of displacement and failure.Young people are persistent on out migration to avoid being displaced,thus bringing humiliations to parents and families.With Chinese spirits of returning home,migrants deal with issues like sending gifts,contributing to collective projects(like the reediting of the lineage genealogy,the renovating of the ancestral hall,the constructions of roads,bridges,temples,and etc.)and ceremonial ritual performances carefully in accord with li,hoping to bring honor to ancestors.Houses,as an important form of legacy handed down from ancestors,is to be managed materially and spiritually through house conservation or construction.It demonstrates that sang zi culture has influenced and shaped Qingtian migrants'large-scale and wide-scope transnational practices in homeland.Sang zi culture also guides or partly decides the material forms and spiritual meanings of transnational practices.I argue that Qingtian migrants are not only rational beings seeking profits,they are culture-promoted migrants seeking cultural meanings and values.Studies on migrants and their transnational practices should not be limited to causal explanation from economic,political or social perspectives.More efforts are needed to interpret life meanings and values through going deep into migrants' everyday life and their cultural soil.