A Study Of Health Concepts And Practices In The Context Of Spatial Shift ——A Case Study Of Dachaigou Village

In recent years,with the global spread of the COVID-19,health issues have once again attracted great attention from the academic circles.Starting from safeguarding the health of the People and realizing the long-term development of the country,the Chinese government regards people’s physical health as an important part of building a moderately prosperous society,and begins to comprehensively implement the development strategy of the "Healthy China".Human behavior is significantly influenced or guided by concepts.As a part of cognitive concept,apparently,the concept about health plays a certain role in guiding and promoting human’s behavior.Moreover,the concept of health is a dynamic development,which will constantly transform and adjust with the changes of realistic conditions and context.In other words,the adjustments are realized on the basis that how people measure between new and old concepts.This paper aims to study the health concept of Kazak herders in Balikun Kazak Autonomous County,Xinjiang（hereinafter referred to as Balikun county）under the background of spatial transformation in the process of herders’ settlement in China.Since 2000,Chinese government has implemented a series of pasture ecological restoration policies in nomadic areas such as Inner Mongolia,Xinjiang,Tibet,Gansu and Qinghai,to reverse the increasing degradation of pasture,which involves the relocation of pastoralists.As the part of National Livelihood Project and Housing Project,pastoralists’ sedentarization program is one of the most important policies to ensure pastoralists’ livelihood,economic growth and stability.Driven by this policy,all Kazak herders in Balikun county have fully settled down.With the transition from traditional nomadic space to settlement village space,not only the physical space for herders’ lives,and production has changed,but also their social and cultural spaces such as social communication,diet culture,marriage and childbirth customs,medical and health care have been reset.In the process of the resets mentioned above,the herders’ health concept has also undergone a series of changes.Dachaigou village in Balikun county has the universal significance of nomadic settlement and its uniqueness.Therefore,taking it as the field investigation point,this paper uses the anthropological research method to describe the sedentary changing patterns of Kazak herders detailed and accurately,showing the changes of their health concept in the spatial turn,and outlining the dynamic relationship between spatial transformation and health concept.Firstly,from the aspects of herders community space and family space,this paper analyzes the spatial change processes of Kazakh herders from nomadic to settled in Dachaigou Village,Balikun County,and reveals the changes in physical space that occur with settlement.For example,the transformation of social organizations with "Ail" as the unit into administrative organizations with villages as the unit,the transformation of nomadic community space characterized by "circular" into village community space characterized by "square",and the continuous improvement of public facilities with the construction of settled villages have laid a material foundation for improving the quality of herders’ life.These visible changes in physical space are the objective conditions and prerequisites for the changes and reconstruction of herders’ living and social cultural space.Secondly,discussing how the change of Kazakh herders’ health concept is related to the transformation of life space.Mentioning about herders’ life space,this paper divided it into natural environment and social environment.Among them,the natural environment mainly includes geographical location,climate conditions and water resources,analyzing local diseases caused by local special natural climate such as seasonal or daily temperature difference;The social environment includes the social interaction patterns of herders in settled villages,spatial classification,daily habits,etc.The change of herders’ living space has not only greatly changed the lifestyle of herders,but also reflected the change in herders’ concept of health.Finally,this paper will explore the reconstruction of the social and cultural space of Kazakh herdsmen,including food culture,breeding customs and medical and health care.In terms of food culture,analyzing the diet concept,cleanliness concept and diet classification concept of Kazak herders by revealing daily diet habits such as " tea drinking ","irregular eating" and "unhealthy" diet structure.It is found that after settling down,the replacement of Kazakh herdsmen’s diet culture space not only ensures the continuation of traditional diet,but also accepts the concept of healthy diet;In terms of cultural space of marriage and childbearing customs,revealing the changes brought by the transformation of space by comparing the traditional marriage and childbearing customs of Kazak and the marriage and childbearing habits of settled villages.However,on this account,the herders reservation,continuation and change of a large number of traditional customs and taboos show that Kazakh herders eager to retain traditional ideas,meanwhile reconstructed the new cultural space of settled villages;In terms of medical and health space,as the state has increased financial investment and technical support for public health system and basic medical services in ethnic minority areas in recent years,herders who had settled down possess more convenient medical,health conditions and services in terms of pregnancy and childbirth,medical choice and pension.In this political and economical constructive process,Kazak herders be drawn into modern medical technology and service system continuously,while still retaining the local medical concept,to form a new hybrid health concept.In short,this paper is rather a study on the transformation of Kazak herders’ health concept under the background of the spatial shift from nomad to sedentariness than an ethnography about the settlement.The settlement of herdsmen in Dachaigou village first brought the changes in physical space and living space,accompanied by the transformation and reconstruction of social and cultural space such as food culture,marriage and childbearing customs,medical and health care.It is such a series of changes and reconstruction of physical space and cultural space that have transformed herders’ health concept at different levels and different extend.Concept is the guide of action.The transformation of herders’ health concept could be the basis for improving herders’ health conditions.Moreover,it also contributed to promoting national health conditions and construction of a well-off society.Therefore,this paper puts the transformation of herders’ health concept in the background of settlement space transformation,analyzes and explains the dynamic relationship between them,which has certain reference value and enlightenment for "Healthy China" strategy and the construction of "Rural Revitalization" of our country.