Finally, after a far too long break, field research in China was possible again. Together with collaboration partner Song Yu from Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University in Suzhou (China), in August and September 2023, Elena Meyer-Clement was able to re-visit fieldsites in peri-urban areas of Suzhou (Jiangsu Province), and Huzhou (Zhejiang Province), and discover new sites in the surroundings. The focus lay on grassroots governance changes in the urbanization process that in China mostly takes the form of resettlement of rural residents to new urban residential areas. At the same time, current policies focus on rural revitalization and the remodeling of villages for tourism. The simultaneity of both processes is fascinating and provided us with lots of food for thought about how policies attempt to prompt and steer societal change in China. We look forward to formulating our thoughts in upcoming publications!
A peri-urban area in Suzhou, 2018……and 2023 (same place, different angle) (Photo credits: Elena Meyer-Clement)
How to turn a village into a tourist attraction? An attempt in Zhejiang Province, 2023 (Photo credit: Elena Meyer-Clement)
After a long break, the international network “Modernizing Rural China” in September 2022 could finally convene again, this time in the beautiful “Mols Bjerge” National Park in northern Denmark. In the “hyggelig” atmosphere of a renovated farmhouse (Mols Laboratory), researchers discussed how to proceed with empirical research on rural China in times of Covid-19 and political uncertainties. Although the challenges are many, and most field research had been interrupted, participants had used the times of restricted access to rural China for going back to previous data, and designing new projects.
Participants included Mikkel Bunkenborg (University of Copenhagen), Jørgen Delman (University of Copenhagen), John Donaldson (Singapore Management University), Anders S. Hansen (Aarhus University), Lena Kaufmann (University of Zurich), Kristen Looney (Georgetown University), Elena Meyer-Clement (University of Copenhagen), Mads V. Nielsen, Stig Thøgersen (Aarhus University), René Trappel (University of Freiburg), Zhao Yue (University of Melbourne), Francesco Zaratin (University of Vienna), Jesper Zeuthen (Aalborg University), and Zhu Wei (Aarhus University).
Paper presentations focused on the question of environmental sustainability in Guizhou’s big data projects (Donaldson), digitalization attempts in agriculture (Kaufmann), public intellectuals’ conceptualization of ‘peasants’ (Zaratin), trust and distrust in alternative food networks (Hansen), the politics of organic certification (Zhao), college-graduate village officials (Looney), and the fight against Covid-19 in the countryside (Trappel & Guo). Other presentations discussed new projects, such as on high-tech state moralism and popular surveillance (Zhu/Hansen), and projects in the planning or application phase, such as on hosting and guesting (Bunkenborg), the centralized governing of rural urbanization (Meyer-Clement), and automated decision-making and village banks (Zeuthen).
The lively discussions across disciplinary boundaries were immensely fruitful, and overall reflected the joy of coming together again from different parts of the world to discuss the issue of China’s rural modernization. We plan on holding the next meeting in February 2024 in Singapore.
Public lecture at University of Copenhagen featuring talks by Elena Meyer-Clement and Cornelia Reiher (Freie Universität Berlin).
May 5th, 2022 14:00-15:30 at University of Copenhagen, South Campus
The question of how to revitalize rural areas has made it onto the agenda of policymakers worldwide. One key factor for successfully reversing the traditional dynamic of rural resource exploitation and for turning rural areas into spaces of economic innovation, are human resources. However, attracting talent to rural areas has proven difficult. The talks look at dynamics of internal migration and approaches of rural revitalization by central and local governments in Japan and China. With their focus on internal migration, they shed light on practices and challenges of managing populations in the two countries and highlight the underlying ideas about who constitutes the „ideal in-migrant”.
Can migrants revitalize Japan’s countryside? Governmental promotion of urban-rural migration in Northern Kyushu (Cornelia Reiher, Freie Universität Berlin)
Who shall revitalize China’s countryside? China’s “Rural Revitalization Strategy” and new trends in governmental regulation of internal migration (Elena Meyer-Clement, University of Copenhagen)
Elena Meyer-Clement has been invited to join the Advisory Board of Urban-Rural Assembly (URA), a large Sino-German research and development project based at TU Berlin and sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). We look forward to future exchanges!
Meyer-Clement, E., & Zeuthen, J. W. (2020). China’s rural urbanization and the state: Putting the countryside first? China Information. https://doi.org/10.1177/0920203X20923240
Meyer-Clement, E. (2019). Rural urbanization under Xi Jinping: From rapid community building to steady urbanization? China Information. https://doi.org/10.1177/0920203X19875931
Zeuthen, J. W. (2020). Rescaling China’s rural–urban frontier: Exception as norm in the access to development. China Information. https://doi.org/10.1177/0920203X20920817
Wilczak, J. (2020). Leveraging land values for rural development in China after the Sichuan earthquake. China Information. https://doi.org/10.1177/0920203X20928903
Wang, D., & Christiansen, F. (2019). The pursuit of new citizenship by peri-urban residents in China: Status, rights, and individual choice. China Information. https://doi.org/10.1177/0920203X19835455
Pils, E. (2020). From authoritarian development to totalist urban reordering: The Daxing forced evictions case. China Information, 34(2), 270–290. https://doi.org/10.1177/0920203X20929590
In October, Elena Meyer-Clement met with researchers at Nanjing Agricultural University, Fudan University (Shanghai) and Sun Yat-sen University (Guangzhou) to discuss first findings of the project and talk about possible future research collaboration.
She also participated in field trips with Prof SONG Yu (Xi’an Jiaotong – Liverpool University) to model villages and an urbanizing town in the region of the prefectural city Huzhou, Zhejiang Province.
A “beautiful village” in Zhejiang Province
A residential community in an urbanizing town close to the prefectural city of Huzhou, Zhejiang Province
September 27–29, scholars from Europe, North America, and Asia convened at Studienhaus Wiesneck near Freiburg to discuss land use, agrarian change, urbanization and state-society relations in a modernizing Chinese countryside. This years workshop, organized by René Trappel, Elena Meyer-Clement, and Jesper Zeuthen, consisted of paper presentations and a final steering discussion to organize future work and plan upcoming events.
Participants included John Donaldson (Singapore Management University), Burak Gürel (Koç University), Christopher Heurlin (Bowdoin College), Karita Kan (Hong Kong Polytechnic University), Kyonghee Lee (University of Heidelberg), Kristen Looney (Georgetown University), Elena Meyer-Clement (Freie Universität Berlin), René Trappel (University of Freiburg), and Jesper Willaing Zeuthen (Aalborg University).
The article studies the implementation and evolution of the policy of “rural community building” as a case of policy learning. It analyses national and local policy documents and implementation practices in four provinces. The analysis highlights a new framing of the policy, more intensive hierarchical controls over rural land use, and the state’s increasing reach into village governance, as well as new incentives for local governments to continue with demolition and relocation projects. These changes reveal a mode of policy learning in the context of an authoritarian regime whose goal is to improve policy implementation in the face of growing public criticism and social tension.
In June 2019, Elena Meyer-Clement was invited as a panelist at the IAMO Forum 2019 at Halle (Saale), Germany. The topic of the panel discussion was “Current challenges and way forward for Chinese agriculture after 40 years of rural reform”. In this multidisciplinary panel, Elena presented her thoughts on the role of urbanization and the concentration of rural housing space in China’s ongoing “rural revitalization strategy”.
In March 2019 Elena Meyer-Clement and René Trappel, in cooperation with Lanzhou University, conducted fieldwork in Gansu province. The team visited villages, village relocation spots, and urban villages in Lanzhou, Zhangye and Dingxi and conducted interviews with local cadres and residents. The fieldwork provided important insights into the goals, processes and mechanisms of the modernization and urbanization of rural China under the “Rural Revitalization Strategy” in Gansu province.
Elena and René also held lectures (in Chinese) at the Gansu University of Politics and Law.
