A Cultural Study On Social Anomie From The Perspective Of Bourdieu's Practice Theory

In the process of modernization,China is now experiencing a transitional era with “dramatic” transition in economic system and “slow” transition in social structure,during which land acquisition and resettlement is an inevitable step.There are multi-dimensional conflicts between rural society and modern society in the process of land acquisition and resettlement,which has triggered a series of social problems—including the phenomenon of gambling among land-lost farmers.Gambling is a deviant behavior that happens in every society but high gambling rate only exists in a society of anomie.My research aims to interpret the generating mechanism of high gambling rate among land-lost farmers.I have located H resettled community as my field,collected data through ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews and conducted qualitative discourse analysis.By taking perspectives from Bourdieu's practice theory,I interpret gambling from generation of habitus from time scope and marginalized position in field from space scope.The vivid living condition from time and space of H community is unfold which constitutes the context as well as the findings of my research.The research findings are as following:From time scope,H villagers generated specific habitus under the specific geographical and cultural background,including “content with the small wealth” social mentality,educational neglect and lack awareness of crisis and struggling.The specific habitus generated in traditional H village is misplaced in modernized H community— “content with small wealth” social mentality develops into “better enjoying life at home” life attitude and many unemployment people;disadvantageous position in education attainment becomes an impediment for them to integrate labor market;lack awareness of crisis and struggling makes them only see wealth and temptation but neglect challenges,adventure and risks in social transformation.From space scope,H residents are marginalized in concrete and abstract fields.Firstly,their marginalized position in urban space field becomes an impediment for urban integration which constitutes space foundation of gambling subculture;Secondly,marginalized position in labor market field—forced to lose jobs due to lack of institutionalized cultural capital;choose to lose jobs due to their high expectation to work when holding much economic capital—leads to high rate of unemployed people,which constitute the population foundation of high gambling rate.Thirdly,in political power field,H residents think they were in the marginalized position in the process of land acquisition and resettlement.They share a feeling of deprivation and inequality—they think the resettling procedures was not public and the distribution of demolition compensation was unfair,which strengths their subculture feeling and impedes the implementation of some after-resettlement policies.High gambling rate is an epitome of the living condition of land-lost farmers;social transformation caused by land acquisition and resettlement is an epitome of modernization.Experience of H could enlighten us to reflect on our own living condition in the overwhelming tide of modernization.