Ideological conflicts and integration in building a Chinese New Village: Confucianism, communism and neoliberalisation

Abstract

The Building a Chinese Socialist New Village Programme that intends to narrow the rural-urban gap, improve the rural living conditions and develop the economy of rural China, has been conducted throughout the country since 2006. This thesis is a study of the new rural landscape in a model of ‘New Village’ in south of China. In this thesis, I set out to answer two key questions: first, how was the ‘New Village’ built up, from blueprint to funding, project execution and so forth? Second, how does the New Village ‘afford’ (in Gibson’s sense) local life and how do the local people adapt into the New Village? I conducted twelve-months ethnographical fieldwork in Baikou New Village, one of the earliest models of the New Village programme, and found that the conflicts and integration between the three dominant concepts – Confucianism, communism and neoliberalism – provide the key framework in understanding the two questions. Under the framework, the landscape of Baikou New Village will be explained from both the micro view and macro view and embedded in the cultural, historical, economic and political contexts, which may contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the Chinese New Village programme.