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Lineage Solidarity and Rhetorical Resonance: Village Strategies to Retain Primary Schools in Rural China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2021

Felicia F. Tian Open the ORCID record for Felicia F. Tian [Opens in a new window] ,
Jing Song  and
Shichao Du
Felicia F. Tian*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
Jing Song
Affiliation:
Gender Studies Programme, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China; Shenzhen Research Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China. Email: jingsong@cuhk.edu.hk.
Shichao Du
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, State University of New York at Albany, New York, USA. Email: sdu@albany.edu.
*
Email: ftian@fudan.edu.cn (corresponding author).
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Abstract

As the state has shifted its priorities towards social harmony and poverty alleviation, this study finds rhetorical resonance, combined with strong lineage solidarity, as an emerging strategy for villages to compete for government resources and investments. By articulating grassroots needs as being in line with local cadres’ performance goals, villages have successfully converted their needs into development proposals and mobilized lineage solidarity to persuade local cadres of the feasibility of such proposals. Drawing on three villages’ school-saving efforts in Fujian province, our fieldwork illustrates how one village retained its school by mobilizing lineage solidarity and converting education into a “model” village project to boost cultural tourism. Others failed to do so and lost their schools. Under the target-based cadre management system, the bottom-up competition for government support is largely shaped by the villages’ pre-existing development and resource structures, which may maximize management efficiency but may also reinforce socioeconomic inequalities between villages.

摘要

摘要

随着中国政府对社会和谐和扶贫工作的日益重视，本研究发现，宗族团结如果能够与当下的政策话语相结合（话语共鸣），能够帮助村庄得到更多的政府资源和支持。一些村庄通过发掘基层需求与当地干部绩效目标的一致性，将村民的利益需求转化为符合上级政府意图的发展项目和策略，并依靠宗族的动员能力来向当地干部证明这些项目的可行性。本研究比较了福建省三个村庄在撤点并校政策下的不同保校策略：其中一个村庄依靠宗族的动员能力将教育转化为当地以文化旅游促发展的 “模范村”项目的一部分，村小得以保存并发展；而在另外两个村，保校策略未能与脱贫和发展导向的政策话语接轨，在学童流失的情况下难以证明自己的资源优势，村小被撤或降级。在绩效导向的干部管理体制下，村庄已有的发展水平和资源结构极大地影响了它们能否得到政府的支持，这可能会提高政府的管理效率，但也可能加剧村庄之间的社会经济不平等。

Keywords

lineage solidarityrhetorical resonanceschool consolidationrural Chinapoverty alleviation宗族团结话语共鸣撤点并校中国农村扶贫
Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 249 , March 2022 , pp. 239 - 258
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London

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