朝鲜族乡村社会的集中村建设及其社会共同体的质变

城镇化进程将导致传统村落共同体的解体与巨大社会变迁.引导乡村社区的整合与重构,摸索乡村社会可持续发展模式是必要的.朝鲜族乡村社会在城市化进程中经历了巨大社会变迁.为了克服社会变迁带来的阵痛,朝鲜族社会自发组织起集中村建设运动,通过集中村的形式实现就地城镇化的道路.尊重经济结构形式与社会共同体形式之间关系的规律,成为城镇化背景下乡村社区重构的关键因素.集中村建设经验对于处于社会转型期的中国乡村社会,具有启示性的意义.     

Ordering ideals: accomplishing well-being in a Kyrgyz cooperative of elders

In May 2005, after a tumultuous parliamentary election campaign had led to factionalism among the village population, village elders in northern Kyrgyzstan formed the cooperative Yiman Nuru (Light of Faith). The institution, which is headed by the local imam, was set up with the explicit aim to restore harmony and unity among all villagers. This article deals with how people in rural Kyrgyzstan try to achieve a state of well-being for themselves. Specifically, it analyses a chart the elders created upon forming the cooperative, in which they order their social and economic practices, their moral duties and responsibilities vis-à-vis other villagers, as well as their relationship with state actors, along the lines of three moral concepts: harmony, unity, and moral conduct. This chart provides a unique opportunity to probe into people's reflexivity and their own ways of reasoning about the meaning of well-being.     

Bringing the Revolution to the Countryside: Rural Health Programmes as State‐Building in Post‐1952 Bolivia

Bolivia's Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (Revolutionary Nationalist Movement, MNR) took power in April 1952 via a popular social revolution. After 1952, the party implemented state‐sponsored modernisation projects, including extending rural public health programmes. The MNR used health programmes to change rural practices, cultivate political loyalty, and expand the state's political power. Yet rural indigenous communities were hardly passive recipients of these programmes. These communities often requested government services, and they borrowed the MNR's own political rhetoric to position themselves as worthy of state attention. Public health programmes increased access to rural health care, but they also allowed state officials and rural communities to negotiate the MNR's authority.     

Rural industrialization in China: From backyard furnaces to township and village enterprises

This article examines the development of rural industrialization in China from the late 1950s to the mid-1990s. The initial attempt to industrialize China during the Great Leap Forward resulted in a short-lived rural industrialization program, epitomized by the frenzied establishment of hundreds of thousands of backyard furnaces. The second wave of rural industrialization came in the late 1960s and gave rise to the development of local “five small industries” aimed at providing goods and services for agricultural development. Since the introduction of economic reforms in the late 1970s, rural enterprises, known as township and village enterprises, have experienced explosive growth. They are no longer limited to the five small industries, but are engaged in producing consumer goods for both domestic and international markets. This article looks into the driving forces behind the growth of TVEs during the 1980s and examines the evolving roles and challenges they face in the 1990s. Li tu bu li xiang jin chang bu jin cheng. (Leave the land but not the village; enter the factory but not the city.) —A popular Chinese saying about rural industrialization in the 1980s This is based on a background review chapter of his doctoral dissertation, entitled “Industrialization and Energy Use: An Emprical Study of China's Township and Willage Enterprises,” University of Pennsylvania, 1997.     

DEMANDING DAUGHTER DUTY

The transnationalization of rural villages in the northeast region of Thailand through women's transnational marriages is reconfiguring gendered familial obligations in the form of “daughter duty.” This article shows how economic and social remittances from dutiful village daughters who are married to foreign husbands connect local villages and communities to the global, bypassing Thai nation-state institutions and agencies that have inadequately addressed the disadvantageous position of Thailand's Isan region. This transnational process depends on daughters' (and mothers') commitment to their care work and to their role as nurturers of the family, kin, schools, temples, and community—the community being seen as a familial extension in this matrilocal society. Women's upward economic mobility and their adherence to valued filial roles contribute to the community's increased favorable acceptance of women with foreign partners, leading to a greater number of transnational marriages. This article offers a nuanced reading of the so-called phua farang phenomenon (transnational marriages) based on an analysis of transformations brought about by daughter duty and the agrarian changes taking place in villages in Thailand's Isan region as the result of the rapid growth of transnational marriages.     

INCREASING WOMEN's PARTICIPATION IN VILLAGE GOVERNMENT IN CHINA

In the last three decades in China, few and declining numbers of women have participated in the main grassroots institutions of rural government, the village committee and the village branch of the Chinese Communist Party. This article examines a project aimed at addressing this problem, initiated in 2003 in Heyang county, Shaanxi, by one of China's largest and most influential women's nongovernmental organizations, West Women, together with the state-affiliated Women's Federation. The article discusses the goals, strategies, and short-term results of the Heyang Project. It then discusses the longer-term potential of the Heyang model for achieving greater gender equity and women's empowerment in rural China. Previous studies have critiqued Chinese approaches to the goal of increasing women's participation in village government, but have not questioned the desirability or need for the goal itself. In this article, the author takes the critique one step further, to provoke questions about the very desirability of increasing women's participation in village government. She concludes that when viewed in light of other recent trends, notably large-scale rural out-migration and tax reforms, increasing women's participation in village government may not have as desirable or significant an impact on gender relations as has previously been assumed.     

STILL PLAYING WITH FIRE

This coauthored article is part of Sangtin Kisaan Mazdoor Sangathan's (SKMS) efforts to participate in the coproduction of dialogical/dialectical relationships between theory and practice, the lettered and the unlettered, academia and activism, and the fields inhabited by members of SKMS, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and academic scholars.We narrate two intertwined tales based on dialogues among four members of SKMS in the context of producing the first four issues of SKMS's community newspaper, Hamara Safar. The first tale focuses on the political transformation of Sangtin, an organization that was conceptualized in 1998 as an NGO for rural women's empowerment based on the mainstream donor-based model of social change. A three-year–long process of critical reflection and writing by nine women on the politics of caste, class, religion, and gender in the context of rural development and women's empowerment programs — as well as on the global politics of knowledge production — paved the way for the emergence of SKMS, an organization that today consists of over five thousand poor farmers, manual laborers, and their families, most of them dalit. SKMS believes that definitions and processes of empowerment must evolve from rural people's struggles and active participation, instead of emerging from donor institutions, NGO headquarters, university-based experts, or think tanks—and then being applied to the rural people. The second story focuses on some of the hurdles in the path of SKMS as it remains grounded in feminist principles, but refuses to work exclusively with women. Together, the two intertwined stories map the archaeology of the shift from Sangtin to SKMS and some of the larger questions pertaining to “women's issues,” “feminist politics,” and “transnational collaborations” that this shift has opened up.     

Export Growth and Development to Poor Rural Regions: a Meso-Scale Analysis of the Upper Limari

Abstract — The aim of this article is to explore the recent social and economic evolution of a rural region that was formerly one of the poorest in Chile but has been transformed by a productive specialisation in table grapes for export markets. The region is that of the Upper Limari in Chile's semi-arid Norte Chico. The analysis focuses on changes in four interrelated variables: productive investments; land markets; labour markets; and population distribution. Rapid growth in investment, the emergence of dynamic land markets, dramatic increases in labour productivity have transformed the agricultural sector. Small-scale farming has survived poorly due to lack of capital, technical problems and lack of bargaining power with the international fruit companies. The large-scale farmers have enjoyed better conditions and a reconcentration of land has occurred. However, the emergence of new productive activities in an area where labour alternatives have been historically scarce has provided new sources of income. Population is increasing in rural settlements linked to irrigated agroexportation and quality of life indicators have improved. Rural depopulation is not a feature of the region as a whole.     

Migration past and present: changing patterns in Kyrgyzstan

Internal and international labour migration is a main livelihood strategy for many people in rural areas of Kyrgyzstan. It is estimated that approximately one-third of the employable population of Kyrgyzstan is working abroad. However, current labour migration phenomena are not exceptional since Central Asia's history has always been characterized by the movement of people, including external and internal, forced and voluntary, legal and illegal, permanent and temporary, ethnically or economically motivated migration. This article gives an overview of the historical and present migration processes with a special focus on three village communities in rural Kyrgyzstan. It deals with the opportunities and difficulties with which labour migrants and their non-migrating family members are confronted today. The results are based on extensive field work in Kyrgyzstan.     

Asset stripping in Chinese state-owned enterprises

This study addresses the consequences of commercialization and modernization of agriculture on ethnic minority farming communities in Vietnam's upland areas. These communities have been deeply affected by the pro-market reforms introduced nation-wide as the result of economic renovation (doi moi). The study examines the changes in standards of living and quality of life as well as the constraints acting on the development of family farms. Importantly, it investigates the role of government in influencing the process of rural development. Some of the most important findings can be summarized as follows. First, pro-market reforms have led to the diversification of the farm economy. Cash crops, especially tree crops, are now the main component of the household economy. Second, income disparities have increased and poverty remains entrenched in pockets of the upland population. Third, in its effort to restructure the national economy, the central government has decreased its contribution to upland development. The weakening of the social and physical infrastructure hampers farmers' efforts to participate in the market economy. Fourth, because of a general lack of rural industries, few employment opportunities exist outside the farm sector. As a result, many households engage in informal off-farm activities as a survival strategy.     

Networks of Reciprocity: Precarity and Community Social Organisations in Rural Myanmar

ABSTRACT

Growing precarity amongst rural households in Myanmar is characterised by increasingly debt-fuelled agriculture, decreasing sufficiency and sustainability of rural livelihoods and an absence of social safety nets. This constrains the capacity for viable livelihoods, as risk-averse coping strategies undermine long-term economic sustainability. In this context, informal support networks may be expected to decline or collapse. However, recent evidence demonstrates the widespread emergence of community-based social organisations in rural communities, formed along traditional principles of reciprocity. Analysis of large-scale rural household surveys demonstrates that such organisations are found in nearly 40% of communities in rural Myanmar. These organisations collect and redistribute funds to help with healthcare, education, funerals and other social needs. The presence of such organisations is linked to higher levels of household resilience, achieved through reducing the inequalities linked to gender, disability and poverty, and through providing enabling environments for effective income diversification. Communities with higher levels of migration are more likely to have community-based social organisations, possibly a result of economic and social remittances. In the absence of effective formalised social protection, these social organisations provide most of the social assistance in rural communities, representing new networks of reciprocity in the face of increasing precarity.     

Building Neo-liberal Markets and Other Agendas: The Politics of Risk Management at AusAID

Abstract

This article analyses emerging approaches by donors to risk management, focusing on the case of the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID). It suggests that AusAID's understanding and management of risk are expressions of particular political and social interests and, subsequently, that its approach to risk management is inherently political in nature. While AusAID's policies and guidelines on risk management identify a wide range of risks as being relevant to the agency's work – including risks to poverty reduction and sustainable development – in practice it has focused on managing risks to the building of neo-liberal markets, both within Australia and in developing countries, and the Australian government's foreign policy objectives. To illustrate these points, we present an analysis of AusAID's approach to risk management in a major economic governance project, the Philippines-Australia Partnership for Economic Governance Reforms. We conclude by indicating ways in which donor approaches to risk management can be revised to give greater attention to the needs of the poor and civil society, while acknowledging that such revisions may be contingent upon prior changes in the structure of power and interest and/or institutional characteristics of aid policy-making processes in donor countries.     

Using ‘Public Health Crossings’ to Create Community‐Based Rural Healthcare in Mexico: The Case of Two Health Centres in Xochimilco

Health centres established in Xochimilco, Mexico during the 1930s and 1940s represent a larger shift in the national health agenda from training medical students in rural health to addressing the specific health challenges of rural communities. While the 1935 centre offered urban students practical experience in rural environments, it did not adequately address the area's health problems. In contrast, the 1947 centre utilised improved community exchanges to enhance the region's health and sanitation. This decade of transformation resulted from a network of politicians, international organisations, and health professionals who helped to establish broader community‐based public health programmes in rural Mexico.     

The political economic factors of migration to Bangkok

A new way of urbanization has emerged in China where farmers are urbanizing the rural areas instead of migrating to the large cities. This article addresses the question of why current urbanization takes this direction in which surplus labor has been transferred from agriculture into the industrial and service sectors without leaving the rural areas. The findings indicate that continual population pressure and reform policies in post-Mao China have resulted in strategic development of small towns in the rural areas. In this development, township and village enterprises have been the locomotive of rural urbanization. Institutional constraints could be moved, created, or utilized in a way which can be conductive for social development. The rural urbanization in China could be significant for many developing countries.     

Putting the market in its place: food security in three Mapuche communities in southern Chile

This article analyzes the impact of state policies since the 1970s on household food security in several Mapuche communities in the Araucanía region of Chile (Region IX). The author highlights key transformations in the national economy and food system and endeavors to link those to local phenomena, in particular the absorption of the local livelihood strategies and food systems into capitalist markets and the high incidences of food insecurity. The article concludes that a reconceptualization of macroeconomic and indigenous policies are required to rebuild the material and social foundations of rural Mapuche communities that provide the bases from which their inhabitants can reconstruct a mutually beneficial relationship with the broader Chilean society and avert the continued acceleration of tension and violence.     

Gillard,Rudd and Labor Tradition*

Julia Gillard replaced Kevin Rudd as prime minister and Labor leader in June 2010. She describes her government as being firmly in the “tradition of Labor”. To locate it in the broad ideological continuum of Labor governments, and to test the suggestion that she is travelling a reform path set largely by the Hawke and Keating governments, I analyse the positions taken by Rudd and Gillard on a range of issues, beginning with economic policy. On social issues Gillard has been even more cautious than Rudd and this reflects her analysis of the electoral impact of Howard's Culture Wars. Her focus on educational opportunity suggests she is the logical successor to Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. As Labor leaders, Rudd and Gillard each embraced market‐reliant policy positions. Rudd even claimed to be an “fiscal conservative”. However, with Rudd venturing a critique of neo‐liberalism, it is Gillard whose stance is closer to Hawke and Keating's “economic rationalism”. Indeed Gillard's insistence upon the centrality of markets leaves Labor with a dilemma: if there are no significant problems with relying on markets then why does Australia need a social democratic party?     

Natural resource policies and standard of living in Kazakhstan

This paper evaluates Kazakhstan's natural resource policies and their impact on the standard of living of the Kazakhstan population within the framework of three determinative factors: globalization and international markets; Soviet legacy and ‘resource nationalism’; and Nursultan Nazarbayev and his authoritarian leadership. It argues that natural resource policies of Kazakhstan failed to improve the living standards of the majority of people in Kazakhstan, especially the poor and those living in oil-producing and rural areas, despite increasing oil prices and revenues. The argument will be supported with an analysis of Kazakhstan's oil wealth distribution in light of global initiatives as well as with evidence derived from official reports and statistical data to find out whether Nazarbayev's widely discussed ‘resource nationalism’ is ‘nationalistic’ enough to favour the whole nation.     

Facebook,Contestation and Poor People’s Politics: Spanning the Urban–Rural Divide in Cambodia?

Rural internet use, although still limited, is growing, raising the question of how rural people are using social media politically. As a vehicle of communication that permits the rapid transmission of information, images and text across space and connections between dispersed networks of individuals, does technological advance in rural areas presage significant political transformations? This article investigates this question in the light of a poor result for the Cambodian People’s Party in the 2013 elections, and the subsequent banning of the main opposition party, before the 2018 elections. Expanding internet use in rural areas has linked relatively quiescent rural Cambodians for the first time to networks of information about militant urban movements of the poor. Rural Cambodians are responding to this opportunity through strategies of quiet encroachment in cyberspace. This has had real effects on the nature of the relationship between the dominant party and the rural population and suggests the declining utility of the election-winning strategy used by the party since 1993. However, the extent of this virtual information revolution is limited, since neither the urban nor rural poor are mapping out new online political strategies, agendas or identities that can push Cambodia’s sclerotic politics in new directions.     

Bennu: Africa innovating itself out of underdevelopment

ABSTRACT

This article is a direct challenge to the established view reflected in the World Bank's Berg report, that structural adjustment programmes and the markets alone will resolve Africa's underdevelopment challenges. This article completely accepts that science and technology lead to products and services that create efficiency, productivity and wealth. It accepts different dynasties of industrialisation from land use (agriculture and mining), labour-intensive activities, heavy machinery, assembly lines, branding, information technology and intellectual property, but shows how – in the current global paradigm – this has led to an anomaly: while development aid flows from more industrialised to less industrialised countries, larger sums of global investment capital leave poorer countries for richer countries in search of higher returns. Having accepted the ‘returns-seeking’ nature of capital, a strategy is proposed for Africa to engage with this reality. In contrast with the Berg view, it is argued that the public sector is a key stakeholder in the developmental process. As has been put forward by Thabo Mbeki, several African countries exhibit ‘two nations’ characteristics. If this is true, all seven dynasties of industrialisation can be simultaneously developed through interventionist government, which could not happen though markets alone. A direct policy and strategy positioning in technology-related sectors that support increasing returns should be developed. Economic development bodies should have scientific and technological people to ensure technological focus in development strategies.The article demonstrates that a different value paradigm is needed. Large numbers of poor people can provide markets for goods that can yield returns for capital that are similar to markets of small numbers of rich people. A shift in the development model from Public Private Partnerships (PPP) to Public Entrepreneur Private Partnerships (PEPP) is suggested to maximise employment through sustainable entrepreneurship. Through spearheaded emerging technologies such as information convergence technologies, cellular technologies such as mobile banking, resource management and alternate energy, Africans can create output that attracts global investment capital – and not only aid. This article explores how, through investment in activities that generate increasing rather than decreasing returns, Africa will innovate its way out of what appears to be a stubborn history of underdevelopment.     

Towards understanding the contextual role of traditional leadership in the establishment of cyber communities amongst rural people in South Africa: The case of Dr J.S. Moroka Municipality

Abstract

ICT policies instituted over a number of years by the South African government have failed manifestly in establishing cyber communities amongst rural people in South Africa. The authors of this article argue that for rural South African communities to reap the benefits of ‘cyber citizenship’ and Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) initiatives, it will be necessary for communities to enable themselves and to take ownership of initiatives to participate in the anticipated South African information society. The authors argue that the success of ICT4D initiatives depends very strongly on an understanding of the interaction of such initiatives with the social context at the local community level. One of the significant aspects of the social context at community level is the role of traditional leaders in these communities. This article examines the role of traditional leadership, with specific reference to the literature on traditional leadership in South Africa and the literature on the role of traditional leadership in ICT4D initiatives, as well as empirical findings from a case study that serves as an example of a ‘typical’ rural community in Mpumalanga, South Africa.