Identification And Construction Of The Self-identify Of "People Of The Third Front"

This study focuses on a national migrants lasting nearly 17 years which caused by a major national industrial strategy shift named as "The Third Front construction". In millions of the migrants, those from Shanghai played an important role during the shifting process as the Shanghai Electrical Board sent over 40,000 workers and almost 10,000 sets of machines to the Third Front before and after from 1960s to 1977. In order to make the study more convenient, this study chooses the workers emigratedfrom Shanghai to Hanzhong (a small city in Shanxi province) as the main object. Based mainly on deep interviews and observation as well as literature search, this paper introduces the relationalism perspective which transcending the dualistic theory and divides the process into three periods according to the life path of "labor migrants of the Third Front": leaving Shanghai, living in Hanzhong and backing to Shanghai.The analysis of this paper majorly discusses the process of establishing the group identity of the Shanghainess who has the common experience in Hanzhong during the Third Front Construction period as this is a process of gambling and consulting between self-identity and social define. From both memorial and actual perspectives, this paper shows attention to the interaction between these two parts and their influence on shaping the group identity of these people. Besides, by putting important on both the recount of the people and the historical process, this paper also draws a conclusion that under the influence of individual identity anxious caused by social vicissitudes and social reconstruction, the labor migrants of Third Front backing to Shanghai are seeking reasonable way to construct their group identity and making a appropriate explain for their identity by practice activities during daily life. As a result, they become an important part in shaping the particular group identity: "People of the ThirdFront".