This book provides first-hand, insiders' perspectives on urban issues in China, aiming to provide a theoretically informed and empirically rich discussion of the new social landscape of urban China in the 21st century. The research reported encompasses both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, with the latter based on extensive and in-depth fieldwork. The authors, most of them being native Chinese, had distinctive advantages in gaining access to study subjects, and had intimate knowledge of the locations and people they studied. The book's primary geographical focus is on southern China, especially Guangdong province. This region is in the forefront of China's transition to a market economy, and therefore constitutes an ideal social laboratory to study the key urban issues that have emerged in the last two decades. Combining ethnographic research along with survey-based quantitative analysis, this volume will appeal to students of urban issues in contemporary China, and it will generate important and fresh empirical and theoretical insights for the broader scholarly communities of area studies, urban studies, and urban sociology. It will also serve as a useful text for graduate courses and advanced undergraduate courses on China and urban sociology.
This book provides first-hand, insiders¿ perspectives on urban issues in China, aiming to provide a theoretically informed and empirically rich discussion of the new social landscape of contemporary urban China. Focusing on, but not limiting its scope to southern China, this volume¿s rich ethnographic research and advanced survey-based quantitative analysis will appeal to students of urban issues in contemporary China, as well as the broader scholarly communities of area studies, urban studies, and urban sociology.
Section I. Migrant Workers and Community Reaction1. Job Mobility of Rural Migrants in China's Urban Labor Market: the Case of Pearl River Delta Region, Zhen Li and Zai Liang2. Economic Deprivation, Social Networks and Unprotected Rights- A Study on Peasant Workers' Collective Action in the Pearl River Delta, Xiaojuan Chen and Cheng Chen3. Institutionnel Segmentation and Psychosocial Repellence: Urban Residents' Attitude toward Migrants, Jiashun Wang and Steven F. MessnerSection II. New Patterns of Urbanization4. On Not Wanting to Become Urban- Ethnographic Perspectives from a Pearl River Delta Urban Community Transited from Rural Village, Cuiling Li and Josephine Smart5. The Development of Rural Village in Chinese City - A Case study of Zhu Village in Guangzhou, Fuping Chen and Eric Fong6. Changing Economy and Urbanization in a Chinese Ethnic Minority Village: The Case of Bai Peasants in Xizhou, Yunnan Province, Xiongduan Yang and Alan SmartSection III. Impacts of Globalization, Technology, and Markets on Urban China7. The Reconstruction of Social Support System for African Merchants in Guangzhou, China, Tao Xu and Zai Liang8. Mobile Phone Culture among the Information Have-less: A Case Study of Laid-off Workers in Shenyang City, China, Guangxu Ji and Youqin Huang9. Housing Property Rights Disputes in Urban Chinese Families: An Institutional and Sociological Perspective, Jing Li and Youqin Huang