A Study On Fate Of Baoans' Villages From The Perspective Of Logic Of Peasants' Actions

With the development of urbanization,the number of villages has been declining for many years.To some extent,it is resulted from the government's policies,but more significantly,it's the after-effect of market economy and migration movement.Will a village short of capacity and labor due to migration meet the end of its destiny? This thesis takes village G,a community of Baoans,as an example to analyze the logic of the peasants' actions and understand their choices,by which we can explore their influence on the villages.This thesis defines the logic of peasants' actions,and builds its structure in three levels: fundamental values,social values and ontic values,and analyzes the logic of Baoan peasants' actions.This thesis suggests that the fate of a village community relates to the change of its components: moral authority,people-to-people connections,fixed village boundaries,identity and consensus among villagers.By selecting four phenomena(or events),which are the establishment of moral authority,the participation in collective activities,working as migrants,and social stratification,this part analyzed the influence of the logic of the Baoan peasants' actions on their choices Choosing these four phenomena(or events)is out of two reasons: On the one hand,they can reveal the logic of the peasants' actions;on the other hand,they can make a difference directly to one or several components of a village community.It turns out that,in village G,religious leaders play the role of moral authority;collective religious activities have strengthened the social connections among villages,and maintained and expanded the village's public spaces;working as a migrant serves the purpose of earning more money and enjoying a relatively comfortable life in the village,at the same time,migration is breaking down the boundaries of the village gradually;the motivation of earning more money is stimulated by the market economy,and has resulted in social stratification.Meanwhile,fundamental valuesare being left out by villages,who,however,have maintained their belief in the social and ontic values.In a word,the community of village G has not been dissolved with the impact of market economic and migration.To Baoan peasants,village community is not only a regional community or a living community,but also a spiritual community which provides spiritual values for peasants.However,the spiritual village community is threatened to lose the capacity of producing values independently during the process of urbanization.Therefore,we need to rebuild village communities to meet the demands of the peasants,the countryside and agriculture by utilizing the logic of peasants' actions and local knowledge.The new village community isn't a traditional closed community,but a kind of community which can adapt to modern society.