Social Network Construction Immigrant Villages Under Water Utilization

Basing on a generating and developing immigrant village in Luanjingtan Irrigation District of Inner Mongolia, the article explores the construction of social networks on migration from a dynamic point of view, examines changes in social networks which due to institutional and resource utilization. From the analytical framework of "resources-system-Network", the study summarized the social networks of migrants into three different types, namely mutual aid network, sheltered network and segmentation network, this three types of network correspond to the different stages of the development of immigration Village.In the first stage, also is the early stage of removal. Because the village is rich in water resources and the government’s "Absence", the effects of formal system on water resources allocation is weak, immigrants construct mutual aid network based on geopolitical relations and the water order. The social network of this stage has a strong inclusive and cover almost all migrants in the village.In the second stage, with the expanding of the population size of immigrant village, there has a sharp conflict between people and resources. More serious, coupled with the government to strengthen restrictions on water resources, immigrant village facing water shortage crisis. However, at this stage, the village still holds the configuration of the water resources, and the village cadres in the center of the allocation of resources. To meet the requirements of immigrants on water resources, immigrant village as a whole constructed sheltered network as the center of the village cadres. At this stage, the social network covering all immigrants, but to follow the principle of priority of local immigrants, already has a certain degree of exclusivity and closed.In the third stage, due to the implement of "water right transfer" policy, the competition between industrial and agricultural for water highlights become serious. In order to limit agricultural water consumption, the government withdraws the village’s configuration of water resources, which leads to the village’s sheltered network failures. The competition and differentiation between different types of immigrants become more and more fiercely because of the limited water resources. Based on this, immigrant village forms segmentation network. The local immigrants construct segment to the foreign immigrants in order to ensure their monopoly on water resources. At the same time, foreign immigrants also construct self-segmentation in order to fight against local immigrant’s segmentation. At this stage, the immigrant village social network already has a strong exclusive.In this article, the immigrant village’s dynamic process of social network how effected by the resources and the system is the core issues. Through the analysis of the above three stages, the paper argues that the construction of the social network is a dynamic change, evolving process, it is always embedded in certain situations of institutional environment and resource utilization, and effects by the initiative of the actors. The construction of social network also affects the structure of the network, the pattern of individual’s resource mobilization as well as his or her ability to gets resources from the network. In the case of this article, the immigration village’s social networks become more and more closed and exclusive, which from mutual aid to sheltered and then segmentation. This is also reflects from the other side about the development and changes of the immigrant village itself. This is worth our consideration from "open" to "closed" about the village, which also leaving the imagination of the fate of the village’s development.