Reconstruction Of Rural Public Space In The Transition Period

As the field of communication and interaction within village inner structure, rural publicspace has become the home in which rural society and people express their emotion duringrapid transition era in China. Just as most villages in the west, Li Cun has been undergoing aprocess of anomy caused by the shrink of public power as well as the rising of private realm.This paper thus chooses Li Cun as the research subject to discuss this issue. Usingparticipant observation and non-structure interview, this paper focus public space and thespecific of its declination based on the relating concept and theory, in order to identify thereconstruction of rural public realm’s influence to rural integration and authority under thecontext of modernity and to explore the various pathways of reconstruction during transitionalperiod.This paper mainly contains three parts: instruction, main body and reference. Instruction,as the first chapter, briefly introduces the research background, purpose, meaning, theoreticand realistic basis, literature review, method, scheme and so on.The main body contains five chapters. Chapter two is the basic information of Li Cun,which depicts the broad sense in four aspects as geography, economy, social structure andcustoms.Chapter three “public space in Li Cun” specifies its various forms: ancestral hall, temple,village shops, residents’ front door, wedding and funeral, village square, county fair,committee, parlors and so on, and identifies five categories according to their function andstructure: religious space, living space, productive space, entertaining space and politicalspace, and then explores the internal logic of public space and village order.Chapter four is “rural public space’s dilemma”. This part deals with the transitionprocess of Li Cun’s public space, including the losing of publicity, the changing of public issues, the repulsion of communication, the disintegration of public power and village anomy.Chapter five “the reconstruction of rural public space” firstly illustrates the necessity andpossibility of reconstruction, and then explores the various pathways to achieve.Chapter six “reflection and conclusion” raises two important questions that are stilldisputable in the research field: one is “should the reconstruction be focus on practical needsor spiritual belonging”, the other is “should the reconstruction be relied on internal forces oroutside forces”, and makes my own opinion.The subject of public space reflects the villagers’ value, and at the same time thetransition process gives insights of the changes of tradition. Thus, the increasing gossips andmeaningless chat dissolves publicity and damages village orders, which along with therepulsion of communication, the changing of values and the rising of private realm causes thedeclining and reconstruction of public space. During transitional period, the reconstructionprocess concerns village order both in building and maintaining, and also village integration.Under the needs from policies and internal demands, the reconstruction becomes necessaryand possible. Thus, such efforts should be make to achieve the goal: proper planning onpublic construction, identification of the subject of reconstruction, valid guidance of publicissues, promoting public life’s transition, rebuilding rural association, regaining identity andso on.