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 November, Elena Meyer-Clement and René Trappel presented a paper at the annual meeting of the Working Group of Social Science China Research (Arbeitskreis Sozialwissenschaftliche Chinaforschung, ASC) in the German Association of Asian Studies (DGA) in Göttingen. The title was “From ‘New Socialist Countryside’ to ‘Rural Rejuvenation’: What is new in rural China?”.
The paper compares the strategy of Rural Rejuvenation under Xi Jinping with the Building of a New Socialist Countryside in Hu Jintao’s administration, particularly from the Foucauldian perspective of governmentality. The paper argues that the Rural Rejuvenation strategy introduces new approaches to optimize and modernize the rural population, with direct state interference on the retreat and increasing use of offering new rights and benefits.
(From left to right: Moderator Daniel Fuchs, René, and Elena. Credit: Author)