Chinese peasants on the wheels of change: Rural reform and its impact in a Tianjin village.

摘要

Based on an enthnographic study of a suburban village in the Tianjin area, I explore the impact of the post-Mao rural reform on the political and sociocultural spheres of village life. I have two main points. Firstly, I will examine how the simultaneous development of private and collective economies in the village affected the power relationship between cadres and ordinary villagers. Secondly, I will explicate the implications of the recent resurgence of life-cycle and calendrical rituals for the state's ideological hegemony; and I will interpret this phenomenon in the context of the post-Mao reform.;The decollectivization of agriculture considerably weakened the power and authority of village cadres; at the same time, the development of collective enterprises in the village provided the cadres with an effective means of control that they could use to implement state policies. They continued to alternate between the role as state agents and the role as local representatives, depending on their calculation of both external and internal pressures and the outcomes of their actions.;The remarkable flourishing of life-cycle and calendrical rituals is a sign of the state's diminishing ideological hegemony in the village. The main proponents of traditional rituals refused to endorse the state's application of the science/superstition, modernity/tradition divides to their own ritual practices; they believed these possessed valuable knowledge and wisdom. Yet, they continued to hold strong commitment to the basic tenets and values of the modernization ideology propagated by the state; this was indicative of the powerful penetration of the dominant ideology into deeper levels of consciousness. For many participants, the importance of the resurfacing peasant rituals lay in their function as a convenient venue for informal social networking and ritual display. Such values as simplicity and frugality that the socialist state had propagated with regard to ritual practices were no longer appropriate, now that the pursuit of material wealth was strongly encouraged by the state and conspicuous consumption was actively sought by most villagers.