Urbanization, Social Mobility, and the Construction of Family Property Relations in a Village Community in Southwest China
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19485272 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Yi Wu (0000-0001-6059-3627, Clemson University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 09 |
| Issue | 03 |
| Pages | 151-168 |
| Publication date | 2019-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Advances in Anthropology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2163-9353 • E-ISSN: 2163-9361 |
| Publisher | Scientific Research Publishing, Inc. (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.4236/aa.2019.93011 |
| OpenAlex | W2965510446 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 14 |
Based on field data collected in a village community in Southwest China during the first decade of the new millennium, this paper shows that urbanization and increased social mobility contributed to growing awareness of individual rights and changing norms regarding domestic property division. Focusing on the division of farmland within rural families, this paper shows that due to the increasing rights-asserting activities of rural individuals, the traditional norms regarding property rights between genders and generations were subject to contestation and negotiation. For instance, as increasing social mobility and economic opportunities caused more and more villagers to leave rural areas, disputes could break out among brothers over what constitutes a fair property division—one based on traditional egalitarianism among sons or one based on labor investment. Also, daughters, who traditionally did not have access to family property, began to demand their shares of land when the family divided. Parents’ attitudes towards daughters could also change, offering some daughters the opportunities of succeeding family property. Such new perceptions and behavior regarding property rights can serve as a benchmark/starting point for examining whether and how property relations in rural communities had become more fluid as extensive urbanization and increased rural-urban migration took place in China in the second decade of the new millennium
China · Development economics · Division of labour · Economic growth · Economics · Egalitarianism · Geography · Negotiation · Political science · Property rights · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Urbanization · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Chinese history and philosophy · Law
House united, house divided
The Disputing Process–Law in Ten Societies
The Vanishing Hectare
Agents and Victims in South China
Introduction
Subject or Object? Women and the Circulation of Valuables in Highlands New Guinea [ 1 ]
Land Expropriation and the Gender Politics of Citizenship in the Urban Frontier
Egalitarian Redistributions of Agricultural Land in China through Community Consensus
Villains, Victims and Aspiring Proprietors
The Gender of the GiftProblems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia
The Cultural Life of Intellectual Properties
China's Peasants
| Highly cited | No |
|---|