The Study On Identity Construction Of The "New Farmer" In Contemporary China

Three agricultural problems become the main and fundamental bottleneck restricting the development of our country. With the process of urbanization, the rural area is not only mostly swallowed up by the rapid expansion of the city; the social structure is also on the verge of collapse. As the same time, the hollowization and involution in rural society are becoming more and more serious which makes the rural development and reform to succeed tired. In recent years, while the society is concerned about the future of the countryside, there is a new social trend of youth going to be back to countryside. The youth who has already been back to countryside is called "The New Farmer". Different from the traditional young migrant workers" who have been starting an undertaking in their hometowns, the new farmers not only voluntarily withdraw from unban to rural, but also gave up the good work in the city. Meanwhile, these people are usually younger in age and have received higher education. Before they go to the rural, they can live a decent life in the city by virtue of their personal abilities. And after becoming farmers, they directly or indirectly participate in the production of labor and obtain income through the ecological farming methods.This research takes the identity theory as the framework of the analysis. Try to analyze how the new farmers realize the identity conversion, and show the process of their identity construction. The problem awareness of this research is that as a new and special group, how do they achieve their identity and establish a new social role? How do they reduce the uncertainty of life and establish a new meaning world by constructing the new social role of "the new farmer"? And alone the way, what kind of problems do they have met? How do they get rid of it?Under the background of rapid modernization and urbanization, the essence of the identity construction process of the new farmers is that urban youth who have received good education choose to withdraw from city life as well as the cultural system based on their value and economic rationality. They try to re-establish a different occupation and life so they could re-construct their identity and sense of belonging. After the depth interview to the new farmers, the research draws the following conclusions:1. The construction of "the new farmer" social identity begins with separating from the original occupation. They generally experience the following stages:yearning for the Pastoral Dream, inspection into related things, half white collar-half new farmer, rational resignation from the city. Resignation as the key point for the new farmers clarifies the individual membership further.2. The new farmers complete their group-identity construction in the cognition of relationship between themselves and others. It is not only the result of self-action from the individuals, the national action such as the policy and social system designing as well as the social public opinion further define the identity of the new group.3. As a partial change in the social occupational system, the emergence of the "new farmers" reflects not only the change of economic structure and industrial structure, which also indicates that the change of macro social structure and social order. It is also profoundly affects the rural community. This is constructed on the identity of country as the imagination of the cultural community. In the process of the transformation of their role and identity, it is often one-sided emphasis on the cultural significance of the rural areas, ignoring the history and current situation of its development. Uncourtly it will be a potential factor in hindering their identity construction.Not only we can see more real and active practice subject, but also we can find a more vivid picture of the development of urbanization and modernization due to the research of "new farmer". And I hope that more researches about this group could be of concern to this.