Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T06:48:06.922Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Hidden Gaps in Rural Development: Examining Peasant–NGO Relations through a Post-earthquake Recovery Project in Sichuan, China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2018

Qing Liu ,
Raymond Yu Wang  and
Heping Dang
Qing Liu
Affiliation:
The University of Hong Kong. Email: [email protected].
Raymond Yu Wang
Affiliation:
Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China. Email: [email protected].
Heping Dang*
Affiliation:
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China.
*
Email: [email protected] (corresponding author).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

While much of the scholarly work on the development of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in China focuses on their relations with the state, this paper adopts an anthropological approach to explore previously understudied peasant–NGO relations through the lens of a village-level post-earthquake recovery project in Sichuan. The findings highlight three main types of gaps between the NGO and local villagers: the gaps between the villagers’ immediate needs and the NGO's long-term development plan; the gaps between the villagers’ pragmatic concerns and the “building a new socialist countryside” campaign; and the gaps between the private and collective economies. In spite of the project's unsatisfactory outcome, the NGO did not consider the project a failure. We argue that these gaps were, to a great extent, attributable to the continuing development of the institutional values of NGOs, which guide the transition of Chinese NGOs from traditional charities to modern philanthropic organizations.

摘要

当前对中国非政府组织 (NGO) 的研究大多聚焦于 NGO 与国家之间的关系, 而忽略了对 NGO 与目标群体两者间关系的研究。本文采用人类学的方法, 通过对汶川地震灾区一个灾后重建及农村发展项目的探讨, 试图弥补这一缺失。研究发现 NGO 开展的项目与在地农民的实际需求存在三类主要冲突。第一, NGO 往往关注于农村社区的长远发展而忽视了农民短期的、最为迫切的需求; 第二, NGO 通常将项目的开展与既有政府政策 (如社会主义新农村建设) 相结合, 却与农民的现实考量相冲突; 第三, NGO 提倡通过发展集体经济以促进农村地区的共同富裕, 却忽略了集体经济在农村的失败经历和农民发展私有经济的诉求。本研究进一步表明, 当今中国 NGO 正经历由传统慈善组织向现代公益组织的转型过程, 其项目的开展必然受到行业理念与价值观的约束。鉴于此, 即便 NGO 能意识到这些冲突的存在, 也并不会轻易否定项目成果或为满足目标群体的需求而妥协。

Keywords

NGOspeasant–NGO relationspost-earthquake recoveryrural developmentWenchuan earthquake非政府组织农民与非政府组织关系灾后重建农村发展汶川地震
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 233 , March 2018 , pp. 43 - 63
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © SOAS University of London 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramson, Daniel, and Qi, Yu. 2011. “‘Urban–rural integration’ in the earthquake zone: Sichuan's post-disaster reconstruction and the expansion of the Chengdu metropole.” Pacific Affairs 84(3), 495–523.Google Scholar
Ahlers, Anna L. 2014. Rural Policy Implementation in Contemporary China: New Socialist Countryside. Oxford: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ahlers, Anna L., and Schubert, Gunter. 2009. “‘Building a new socialist countryside’ – only a political slogan?” Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 38(4), 35–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahlers, Anna L., and Schubert, Gunter. 2013. “Strategic modelling: ‘building a new socialist countryside’ in three Chinese counties.” The China Quarterly 216, 831–849.Google Scholar
Bao, Limin. 2009. “Shuilai zhizhang RMB 760 yi dizhen juanzeng” (Who should manage the 76 billion yuan donation for the earthquake). Wanbao wencui 302(20), 26–28.Google Scholar
Briggs, John. 2005. “The use of indigenous knowledge in development: problems and challenges.” Progress in Development Studies 5(2), 99–114.Google Scholar
Cai, Yongshun. 2008. “Local governments and the suppression of popular resistance in China.” The China Quarterly 193, 24–42.Google Scholar
Chang, Yan, Wilkinson, Suzanne, Potangaroa, Regan and Seville, Erica. 2010. “Resourcing challenges for post-disaster housing reconstruction: a comparative analysis.” Building Research & Information 38(3), 247–264.Google Scholar
Chen, Katherine K., Lune, Howard and Queen, Edward L.. 2013. “How values shape and are shaped by nonprofit and voluntary organizations.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 42(5), 856–885.Google Scholar
Crewe, Emma, and Axelby, Richard. 2012. Anthropology and Development: Culture, Morality and Politics in a Globalised World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Deng, Feng. 2010. “Post-disaster reconfiguration of property rights in a transition economy.” Post-Communist Economies 22(2), 193–206.Google Scholar
Deng, Guosheng. 2010. “The hidden rules governing China's unregistered NGOs: management and consequences.” The China Review 10(1), 183–206.Google Scholar
Dunford, Michael, and Li, Li. 2011. “Earthquake reconstruction in Wenchuan: assessing the state overall plan and addressing the ‘forgotten phase’.” Applied Geography 31(3), 998–1009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edelman, Marc, and Haugerud, Angelique (eds.). 2005. The Anthropology of Development and Globalization: From Classical Political Economy to Contemporary Neoliberalism. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ferguson, James. 1990. The Anti-Politics Machine: “Development,” Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Frolic, B. Michael. 1997. “State-led civil society.” In Brook, Timothy and Frolic, B. Michael (eds.), Civil Society in China. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 46–67.Google Scholar
Fulda, Andreas, Li, Yanyan and Song, Qinghua. 2012. “New strategies of civil society in China: a case study of the network governance approach.” Journal of Contemporary China 21(76), 675–693.Google Scholar
Glaser, Barney G. 2001. The Grounded Theory Perspective: Conceptualisation Contrasted with Description. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press.Google Scholar
Gu, Xuebin, Zhang, Heqing and Yang, Xichong. 2007. “Zhuanye xianzhi yu wenhua shimang: nong-cun shehui gongzuo shijian zhongde wenhua wenti” (Professional trap and cultural illiteracy: a reflection on rural social work practice in south-west China). Shehuixue yanjiu 132(6), 161–179.Google Scholar
Hasmath, Reza, and Hsu, Jennifer Y.J. (eds.). 2016. NGO Governance and Management in China. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Heurlin, Christopher. 2010. “Governing civil society: the political logic of NGO–state relations under dictatorship.” VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 21(2), 220–239.Google Scholar
Hilhorst, Dorothea. 2003. The Real World of NGOs: Discourses, Diversity and Development. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Hsu, Carolyn L., and Jiang, Yuzhou. 2015. “An institutional approach to Chinese NGOs: state alliance versus state avoidance resource strategies.” The China Quarterly 221, 100–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, Yunong, Zhou, Linlin and Wei, Kenan. 2011. “5.12 Wenchuan earthquake recovery: government policies and non-governmental organizations’ participation.” Asia Pacific Journal of Social Work and Development 21(2), 77–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hui, Dennis Lai Hang. 2009. “Politics of Sichuan earthquake, 2008.” Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 17(2), 137–140.Google Scholar
Ingram, Jane C., Franco, Guillermo, Rumbaitis-Del Rio, Cristina and Khazai, Bjian. 2006. “Post-disaster recovery dilemmas: challenges in balancing short-term and long-term needs for vulnerability reduction.” Environmental Science and Policy 9(7), 607–613.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacka, Tamara. 2010. “Women's activism, overseas funded participatory development, and governance: a case study from China.” Women's Studies International Forum 33(2), 99–112.Google Scholar
Kang, Xiaoguang, and Han, Heng. 2008. “Graduated controls: the state–society relationship in contemporary China.” Modern China 34(1), 36–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knutsen, Wenjue Lu. 2013. “Value as a self-sustaining mechanism: why some nonprofit organizations are different from and similar to private and public organizations.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 42(5), 985–1005.Google Scholar
Lai, Weijun, Zhu, Jiangang, Tao, Lin and Spires, Anthony J.. 2015. “Bounded by the state: government priorities and the development of private philanthropic foundations in China.” The China Quarterly 224, 1083–92.Google Scholar
Lewis, David, Bebbington, Anthony J., Batterbury, Simon P.J., Shah, Alpa, Olson, Elizabeth, Shameem Siddiqi, M. and Duvall, Sandra. 2003. “Practice, power and meaning: frameworks for studying organizational culture in multi-agency rural development projects.” Journal of International Development 15(5), 541–557.Google Scholar
Lingohr, Susanne. 2007. “Rural households, dragon heads and associations: a case study of sweet potato processing in Sichuan province.” The China Quarterly 192, 898–914.Google Scholar
Looney, Kristen E. 2015. “China's campaign to build a new socialist countryside: village modernization, peasant councils, and the Ganzhou model of rural development.” The China Quarterly 224, 909–932.Google Scholar
Lu, Yi, and Xu, Jiuping. 2014. “NGO collaboration in community post-disaster reconstruction: field research following the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China.” Disaster 39(2), 258–278.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ma, Qiusha. 2002. “The governance of NGOs in China since 1978: how much autonomy?” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 31(3), 305–328.Google Scholar
McAreavey, Ruth. 2006. “Getting close to the action: the micro-politics of rural development.” Sociologia Ruralis 46(2), 85–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menefee, Trey, and Nordtveit, Bjorn Harald. 2012. “Disaster, civil society and education in China: a case study of an independent non-government organization working in the aftermath of the Wenchuan earthquake.” International Journal of Educational Development 32(4), 600–07.Google Scholar
Olivier de Sardan, Jean-Pierre. 1988. “Peasant logics and development project logics.” Sociologia Ruralis 28(2/3), 216–226.Google Scholar
Olivier de Sardan, Jean-Pierre. 2005. Anthropology and Development: Understanding Contemporary Social Change. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Ong, Lynette H. 2014. “State-led urbanization in China: skyscrapers, land revenue and ‘concentrated villages’.” The China Quarterly 217, 162–179.Google Scholar
Ortner, Sherry B. 1995. “Resistance and the problem of ethnographic refusal.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 37(1), 173–193.Google Scholar
Porter, Doug, Allen, Bryant and Thompson, Gaye. 1991. Development in Practice: Paved with Good Intentions. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Qian, Zhongbing. 2008. “Gandong 2008: cishan gan'en zhiyuan” (Touching 2008: charity, gratefulness, volunteerism), Xinhuanet, 20 December, http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2008-12/20/content_10529461.htm. Accessed 14 September 2016.Google Scholar
Roney, Britton. 2011. “Earthquakes and civil society: a comparative study of the response of China's nongovernment organizations to the Wenchuan earthquake.” China Information 25(1), 83–104.Google Scholar
Saban, Liza Ireni. 2013. “Civil service and civil society collaboration: a comparative analysis of disaster management results in China and the United States.” International Journal of Public Administration 36(5), 320–330.Google Scholar
Saich, Tony. 2000. “Negotiating the state: the development of social organizations in China.” The China Quarterly 161, 124–141.Google Scholar
Schneider, Florian, and Hwang, Yih-Jye. 2014. “The Sichuan earthquake and the heavenly mandate: legitimizing Chinese rule through disaster discourse.” Journal of Contemporary China 23(88), 636–656.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, James C. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Semali, Ladislaus M., and Kincheloe, Joe L. (eds.). 1999. What Is Indigenous Knowledge? Voices from the Academy. New York: Falmer Press.Google Scholar
Shieh, Shawn. 2009. “Beyond corporatism and civil society: three modes of state–NGO interaction in China.” In Schwartz, Jonathan and Shieh, Shawn (eds.), State and Society Responses to Social Welfare Needs in China. New York: Routledge, 22–42.Google Scholar
Shieh, Shawn, and Deng, Guosheng. 2011. “An emerging civil society: the impact of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake on grass-roots associations in China.” The China Journal 65, 181–194.Google Scholar
Skinner, Jonathan. 2007. “From the pre-colonial to the virtual: the scope and scape of land, land use, and land loss on Montserrat.” In Besson, Jean and Momsen, Janet (eds.), Land and Development (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan, 219–232.Google Scholar
Skinner, Jonathan. 2011. “A distinctive disaster: Montserrat island under pressure.” In McCusker, Maeve and Soares, Anthony (eds.), Islanded Identities: Constructions of Postcolonial Cultural Insularity. Amsterdam: Rodopoi, 63–89.Google Scholar
Sorace, Christian. 2014. “China's vision for developing Sichuan's post-earthquake countryside: turning unruly peasants into grateful urban citizens.” The China Quarterly 218, 404–427.Google Scholar
Sorace, Christian. 2015. “The Communist Party's miracle? The alchemy of turning post-disaster reconstruction into great leap development.” Comparative Politics 47(4), 479–498.Google Scholar
Sorace, Christian. 2016. “Party spirit made flesh: the production of legitimacy in the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.” The China Journal 76(1), 41–62.Google Scholar
Sorace, Christian, and Hurst, William. 2016. “China's phantom urbanisation and the pathology of ghost cities.” Journal of Contemporary Asia 46(2), 304–322.Google Scholar
Spires, Anthony J. 2011a. “Contingent symbiosis and civil society in an authoritarian state: understanding the survival of China's grassroots NGOs.” American Journal of Sociology 117(1), 1–45.Google Scholar
Spires, Anthony J. 2011b. “Organizational homophily in international grant making: US-based foundations and their grantees in China.” Journal of Civil Society 7(3), 305–331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stepan, Matthias, Han, Enze and Reeskens, Tim. 2016. “Building the new socialist countryside: tracking public policy and public opinion changes in China.” The China Quarterly 226, 456–476.Google Scholar
Tan-Mullins, May, and Chen, Gary Guangli. 2012. “Dynamics of international aid in the Chinese context: a case study of the World Bank's Cixi wetlands project in Zhejiang province.” The China Quarterly 212, 1000–18.Google Scholar
Teets, Jessica C. 2009. “Post-earthquake relief and reconstruction efforts: the emergence of civil society in China?” The China Quarterly 198, 330–347.Google Scholar
Teets, Jessica C. 2013. “Let many civil societies bloom: the rise of consultative authoritarianism in China.” The China Quarterly 213, 19–38.Google Scholar
Unger, Jonathan, and Chan, Anita. 1996. “Corporatism in China: a development state in an East Asian context.” In McCormick, Barrett L. and Unger, Jonathan (eds.), China After Socialism: In the Footsteps of Eastern Europe or East Asia? Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 95–129.Google Scholar
United Nations Economic and Social Council. 2008. “Implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action in Asia and the Pacific. Case study: the national disaster management system of China and its response to the Wenchuan earthquake,” 30 December, http://www.unescap.org/idd/events/cdrr-2009/CDR_2E.pdf. Accessed 14 September 2016.Google Scholar
Vivian, Jessica M., and Maseko, Gladys. 1994. NGOs, Participation and Rural Development: Testing the Assumptions with Evidence from Zimbabwe. Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development.Google Scholar
Wang, Ming. 2001. “The development of NGOs in China.” The Nonprofit Review 1(1), 53–63.Google Scholar
Wang, Xiying. 2010. “Zainan shehui gongzuo de juese pinggu: ‘sange jieduan’ de lilun weidu yu shijian zhanwang” (Role assessment of disaster social work: theoretical dimension of the “three stages” and practical prospects). Beijing shifan daxue xuebao (shehui kexue ban) 220(4), 129–137.Google Scholar
Watson, Andrew. 2008. “Civil society in a transitional state: the rise of associations in China.” In Unger, Jonathan (eds.), Associations and the Chinese State: Contested Spaces. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 14–47.Google Scholar
Xin, Yunxing. 2013. “‘Kunbang shi fazhan’ yu ‘yinyu xing zhengzhi’: dui Wenchuan dizhen zaiqu Pingba Qiangzhai de anli yanjiu” (Binding development and metaphorical politics: a case study of Pingba Qiang village in Wenchuan earthquake zone). Shehui 33(3), 159–183.Google Scholar
Xu, Bin. 2014. “Consensus crisis and civil society: the Sichuan earthquake response and state–society relations.” The China Journal (71), 91–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Xu, Bin. 2016. “Moral performance and cultural governance in China: the compassionate politics of disasters.” The China Quarterly 226, 407–430.Google Scholar
Yang, Guobin. 2005. “Environmental NGOs and institutional dynamics in China.” The China Quarterly 181, 46–66.Google Scholar
Yang, Guobin. 2008. “A civil society emerges from the earthquake rubble.” New Perspectives Quarterly 25(3), 39–42.Google Scholar
Zhang, Qiang, and Yu, Xiaomin. 2009. NGO canyu dizhen zaihou chongjian yanjiu (A Study on NGO Participation in the Post-disaster Reconstruction for the Wenchuan Earthquake). Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe.Google Scholar
Zhao, Li. 2011. “Understanding the new rural co-operative movement: towards rebuilding civil society in China.” Journal of Contemporary China 20(71), 679–698.Google Scholar
Zhou, Xueguang. 2011. “The autumn harvest: peasants and markets in post-collective rural China.” The China Quarterly 208, 913–931.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhuang, Ming. 2009. “The social support network for rural migrant workers in Chengdu, China: local governance and civil society in the fight against poverty and exclusion.” IDS Bulletin 40(6), 41–49.Google Scholar