Rural Elites And Rural Community Development

This paper is a case study on Jianshe Village of the Northeast of Jiangxi in central China. The typical characteristic of community structure of Jianshe Village is that social stratification appears gradually,memory of community is disappearing, and several rural elites exist in the village,but among them there are no dominative rural elites. Thus under the background of fact that rural community development becomes a kind of common demand day by day, with a certain special resource advantage, rural elites often seem to be more successful than the other members of the village in taking action and have greater influence in the course of rural community development. In fact, the development of rural community is a result of the combined promotion of elite group including political elites, economic elites and social elites. Therefore it has a very strong realistic meaning to study the rural elites and bring up a typical rural elite group in terms of the development of the countryside at present in our country and rural harmonious society of construction and building the well-off society in an all-round way. There is no qualitative and quantitative analysis on studying this phenomenon, thing and group of the rural elites, the basic definition of the rural elite wasn't be done by the sociological circles, the author also hasn't the available research data to use. So, this paper regards sociology and social anthropology theory as guidance, follows the principle that the theory combines with practice. The writer cites a typical example-Jianshe Village, which is particular in the middle and western undeveloped areas of China, attempts to start with analyzing the rural elites, has carried on careful distinguishing to the type and characteristic of the rural elites, and then has discussed the interactive relations between elites and villagers and the deep reason of rural elite mobility each other, then explores the rural elite's status and function in rural community development, puts forward the measures of bringing up a high-quality rural elite group, in order to meet demands of rural community development. The whole text covers four following major parts: First part is a summary, introducing intention of choosing the topic and question probed into, existing research results mainly, basic conception and research unit and guiding ideology and method of this research. Second part have especially analyses characteristic of elite group in Jianshe Village and the basic relation with ordinary villagers. This article takes the main influence that rural elites give play to in community interaction field as the standard at first, divides it into three kinds ——political elites , economic elites and social elites, and explains their own characteristics ;On this basis, I have discussed interaction among the elites of the village , power pattern and elites' influence given play to toward villagers ' daily action; This research shows finally the rural elite is an action subject that be able to be worked up in an social interaction relationships pattern, they change constantly, rural elite's mobility includes horizontal mobility, namely mobility of different kinds of elites and vertical mobility, namely villagers change into the elites. Furthermore, the process of rural elites change is actually the process of accumulation and the operation of social capital. The third part tries to probe into the rural elites'function in rural community development. Since reform and opening-up, the rural elite has played an important role in rural community political,economic and social development. Political function of rural elites shows they exercise leading influence on villagers during rural political modernization. The rural elites'economic function is shown in the aspects such as making the rule of economic resource distribution, the rural economic restructuring, absorbing surplus labor and model to lead the way, etc.Rural elites'social function is incarnated in changing social structure of the village,keeping the stability of community , displaying their exemplary behaviors and expanding government utility. Certainly, the rural elites have some hiding passive functions, we must dispel the negative effect shown on them,to make them really become the leader that villagers shook off poverty and set out on the road to prosperity. The fourth part explores actively the countermeasures that bring up a rural elite typical group. At present, in order to bring about an advance in rural community, it is particularly important and essential to foster the rural elite. For this reason, we should strengthen guidance and support of the government, ameliorate the rural elite mobility mechanism, attract rural elites who swarmed into the cities to come back and pay more attention to the improvement of rural elite's quality.