"Rural Turn" Of The Cultural Studies In Contemporary China

Although many significant Cultural Studies has been seen in China since the1990 s,Cultural Studies still stand at a "Crossroad Wondering where to go".And"Rural’ has become one of the potential directions which has been covered for quite a long time.Retrospecting the history of Chinese modern early thought and the "Rural"ideological trend and practice of British early Cultural Studies is of great enlightening significance for exploring the further direction of contemporary Chinese Cultural Studies.In this light,could "Rural" be the future direction of contemporary Chinese Cultural Studies and explore the development trend of Chinese Cultural Studies?This thesis is an attempt to answer this question.From an interdisciplinary perspective,starting from the internal ideological resources of the early Chinese thought history and the external theoretical resources of the early British Cultural Studies,this research tries to analyze"Rural" in contemporary Chinese Cultural Studies by employing combined research methods including cultural analysis,political economy,ethnographic field research and cultural classic case studies.This study focuses on current issues offering an illustration of bottom-up initiated"Devotion to Homeland"(爱故乡)cultural practice,New Workers cultural construction practice and newly emerged "back-to-hometown memory"(返乡书写)cultural activity by employing case studies and ethnographic approaches.Based on the hot discussion caused by "The Argnment between Lvtu and Tao Dongfeng3"(吕陶论剑),this study explores the possible existence of "Rural turn" in contemporary Chinese Cultural Studies from the theoretical characters of "historicalization"and "contextualization" of cultural research,the pursuit stand of "practicality" and "interventionality",as well as the practical needs of "localization" and "constructiveness".The newly released<National Rural Revitalization Strategic Planning>(《国家乡村振兴战略规划》)has emphasized modernization of national governance capacity and governance system,strengthening cultural self-confidence as well as realizing cultural revitalization.Under this historical context,combined with Foucault’s "governmentality" and Tony Bennett’s cultural policy theory,this research attempts to find out the possibility of combining"critical cultural research" and "constructive cultural research",attempts to respond to the requirements of the times of the top-down cultural governance policy,and pay fullattention to the constructive practical exploration of bottom-up civil cultural practice.If we see that the problem consciousness,theory and methods of British Cultural Studies come from and respond to its specific historical context,then Chinese Cultural Studies should also be embedded in Chinese thought and cultural resources and radical social reality.Thus,we should sort out the resources of China’ s early modern thought history,selectively learn from the ideological and theoretical resources of British Cultural Studies,analyze from both internal and external perspectives,and re-recognize the theoretical production foundation of self.On this basis,we may construct the discourse system of self-cultural studies,respond to the cultural revitalization policy proposition under the "rural revitalization" strategy,and explore the trend of contemporary Chinese cultural studies theory.These are urgent and necessary for promoting the discussion of China’ s cultural research on topics such as state,nation,modernization,the third world and global capitalism etc.Meanwhile,this study tries to intervene into social reality and civil practice,incorporate the bottom-up exploration of civil practice into the field of cultural analysis,illustrate the exploration experience of "rural" in cultural research practice by both"demasking"(去蔽)and "appearing"(显影),and pay attention to China’s development against the context of global capitalism.It has extremely important practical significance for promoting China’ s contemporary cultural studies from the civil to intervening into reality,crossing border,promoting real development,constructing China’s experience,as well as telling Chinese stories from bottom up.