An Investigation On The Collective Memory And Social Identity Of Danwei Staff

With the reform of marketing in China, the form of social organization and the way of social interaction are changing rapidly. As a typical product of planned economy, Railway department delivered both common points of Danwei organization and its own specificity and symbol value. This organization was huge and complicated. Even in today, railway department still remained many characteristics of planned economy period. Through it, we can observe the structure of Danwei, which had disappeared in other places. After comparing, we can even grasp the changing process from collective to individual since the Reform and Opening up policy. At the same time, we can make a conversation with the researched on Danwei system and individualization of Chinese society.This research take a typical railway community, H community, as an example, through the interview with railway staff, exploring their collective memory and social identity. The analysis on collective memory is conducted from three aspects:the work experience, the community life and the social interaction. After that, discuss the relationship between collective memory and social identity, which is divided into three parts: group boundaries, sense of belongings, and assessment from other groups. The key content of railway staff’s collective memory are "responsibility","closure" and "intimate relationship". This situation is connected with the social interaction pattern of Danwei system. Under the effect of collective memory, the group boundary and sense of belongings was strengthened, the social identity stayed in a high level. When their living habits was broken, they felt maladaptive. Then the collective memory and social identity changed with it. In general, their social identity rose at first time, and then decrease. This trend was different from other groups.Through the changing of railway staff’s collective memory and social identity, we find the differences of organization form and social interaction pattern between the period of collectivism and individualism. In the process from Danwei to market, the reform pace of railway department and staff was slow and heavy. This leads to their different changing trend of collective memory and social identity. At the present time, railway department, which was the most characteristic Danwei, started to enter the market economy, railway staff also started to keep touch with the society. This was the best example of the individualism in Chinese society.