The peasant in postsocialist China : history, politics, and capitalism / Alexander F. Day.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Day, Alexander F., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Peasants--China--History.

Peasants.

Rural population--China--History.

Rural population.

China--Economic policy--2000-.

China.

China--Social policy.

China--Politics and government--2002-.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (vii, 233 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The role of the peasant in society has been fundamental throughout China's history, posing difficult, much-debated questions for Chinese modernity. Today, as China becomes an economic superpower, the issue continues to loom large. Can the peasantry be integrated into a new Chinese capitalism, or will it form an excluded and marginalized class? Alexander F. Day's highly original appraisal explores the role of the peasantry throughout Chinese history and its importance within the development of post-socialist-era politics. Examining the various ways in which the peasant is historicized, Day shows how different perceptions of the rural lie at the heart of the divergence of contemporary political stances and of new forms of social and political activism in China. Indispensable reading for all those wishing to understand Chinese history and politics, The Peasant in Postsocialist China is a new point of departure in the debate as to the nature of tomorrow's China.

Contents:

Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction; Peasants, history, and politics; 1 The peasantry and social stagnation: the roots of the reform-era liberal narrative; The revolutionary peasant dialectic; Petty-bourgeois peasant conservatism and the critique of agrarian socialism at the beginning of the reform era; Peasant dependency and the Asiatic state; Suzhi, peasants, and technocracy; Conclusion; 2 From peasant to citizen: liberal narratives on peasant dependency; Peasants and the history of modernization; Populism and the politics of modernization; Primitive accumulation; Conclusion

3 Capitalism and the peasant: new-left narrativesInstitutional innovation: TVEs and the emergence of the new left; Conclusion; 4 ""Deconstructing modernization"": Wen Tiejun and ""sannong wenti""; Wen Tiejun and the emergence of ""sannong wenti""; History and sannong wenti; Contemporary rural crisis and market dominance; Formalism and substantivism in China? Wen Tiejun and Lin Yifu; Sannong wenti goes public; Li Changping and peasant migration; Migrants pushed and pulled: the expansion of Wen ́s critique; Conclusion; 5 Into the soil: ethnographies of social disintegration

Cao Jinqing and the disintegration of rural societyRural governance: the central China ""xiangtupai""; The nativization of social science and a left-leaning stance on rural China; China peasant survey; Conclusion; 6 New rural reconstruction and the attempt to organize the peasantry; Organizing the peasantry to defend their rights; New rural reconstruction; The present as opportunity; ""Rendering rural society knowledgeable"" and the ""ruralization of knowledge""; The new cooperative movement; Conclusion; Conclusion; Glossary; Bibliography; Index

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-139-89299-1

1-107-42507-7

1-107-42292-2

1-107-54498-X

1-107-41982-4

1-139-62630-2

1-107-41724-4

1-107-42105-5

1-107-41850-X

OCLC:

862125889