Topography of Politics in Rural China

The following sections are included:

• EDITORIAL COMMITTEE
• Contents

Eight years ago, I published a book entitled Crime and Punishment: The Story of Xiaocun (1931–1997). In the book, I concluded the story of Xiaocun (“little village”) with the following passage…

The following sections are included:

• Introduction
• Water and the East Coast of Dianchi
• Water Dispute and Water Division: The People and the Government
• The Legend of Water Division and “Living Drama”
• The Chant of Hydraulics: From the Republic Era to the Peak of Socialism
• From Water Diversion to Water Extraction: The Transformation of the Knowledge Types
• “Water Management”, “Heavenly Help” and the Leaders of the Village

The following sections are included:

• Introduction
• Land and “Black Land”
• “Sick Land”
• Lost Land — the Freeway and the Dissolution of the Traditional Way of Life
• Lost Land — the “Great Kunming Plan” and the Loss of Farmland
• Farmers, “Officials” (官儿) and the State
• Conclusion

In China today, houses are the symbol of wealth in peasant society. In other words, land, water, or tractors, etc., as compared to housing, are secondary wealth. This may be the product of socialist collectivism since the 1950s–1970s; and in contemporary, places experiencing urbanization and the disappearance of arable land, this statement seems even more reasonable. When we were very young, we often heard that “farmers build houses once they have money”. About twenty years ago, the first time when I was involved in social sciences field work, I made a questionnaire that surveyed rural entrepreneurs. The sample questionnaires we could refer to at the time were all from social sciences survey books abroad. Regarding the farmers' life conditions, one indicator was to determine the level of poverty or wealth of farmers. Like many students today, I was quickly conscious that “economic income” was not a good indicator. I remember at that time, a scholar from a farmer family background suggested that we supplement it with “housing situation”, making the values of the housing variable: Dirt wall/brick wall, grass house/tile house, cement structure, etc. One saying: Farmers build houses once they have money, this is not false! This indicator based on the forms of housing to measure poverty has been used until today…

The conclusion of this book has actually made an appearance in my introduction. In the first place, the latter was about the basic substance of the book. The “introduction” was also a merger of a first draft “introduction” and “conclusion”. Here, once again I would like to shine the spotlight on topography. In addition, I want to talk about some things that remain undeveloped in the book…

The following sections are included:

• Starting from “Extended-Case Methods”
• The Extended-Case Method and Its History
  • What is the Extended-Case Method?
  • How to Use the Extended-Case Method
• Problems at the Practical Level Faced in this Chapter
• A Prehistory of a Village “Legend” Before Becoming the Case; The “Settling” of Conflict; and The Extension of the Case
  • Case
  • Background and Legend: The Prehistory of the Case (1931–1940)
  • Cases and Their “Settling” (The Interpretation of Village History in 1975: Another Turning Point in the Village History)
  • The “Social Consequence” of the Case: 1950–1970
  • The “Social Consequences” of the Far Extension of a Case: A Family's Life Course and the Reconstruction of a Community (1990–2002)
• Concluding Commentary
  • What is the Meaning Behind Discussing One Case?

The following sections are included:

• Bibliographies
  • Chinese References
  • English References
  • Historical Materials
  • Other Materials
• Index