Harmony And Survival

The relationship between population and environment is the existing objective relationship since the beginning of the human beings. In ancient times, the environment has greatly restricted the development of the population; since modern industrial revolution, to expand living space and to increase population, humans have done the large-scale transformation of the nature, meanwhile, some environmental impact and damage have been caused as well. How to correctly handle the relationship between population and environment will become the demography, economics, sociology and other disciplines an important research topic, and through which a series of theoretical results and perspectives have being produced. In this paper, the author with anthropological research approach, studied the village Zhanli village in Congjiang County, Guizhou Province, entitled "China's first population culture village" and "family planning, the first village of China", with anthropological ethnography, narrated the Zhanli villagers'position of local ecological environment, the process of interactive adjustment and development between population and environment, the influence to the social organization by nature and social environment, the importance of cultural mechanism to the process of population control, and the local culture influence by the State administrative construction and economic development ect. By which, the author studied that the population and the environment were not simply the mutual influence, because the issue of population or the environment was not being isolated by its own, but organically inter-related, which the culture adjustment played the key roles. Deepening of the current population and development policies and the protection of ecological resources, if local culture and ethnic subjectivities were ignored, as well as the mutual adaptation between local ethnic culture, nature and social environment, it may be wishful thinking, or even misguided, The future may be worthy of concern.This thesis by examining the cultural forming factors, such as the local economic life, political system, social organization, cultural practices, belief systems, heritage modes etc. and the change of times, described culture as an adaptive means of population development played an active role, and emphasized the importance of resolving the contradiction between survival and environment from the ethnic subjectivity. In my view, Zhanli, as the traditional farming Dong ethnic group village, has been able to control of its population in the quantity and quality for a long time, its traditional culture, played important role. Living in a relatively closed space Dong people in Zhanli village, unable or unwilling to broader geographical migration to ease the pressure of survival, can only be controlled from within the population; When population control as an idea came into being, the focus on the establishment of this center upon the cultural system as the smooth implementation of the policy provides protection. Although Zhanli has been well known for its "huanhuacao", but in fact the whole set of cultural mechanisms behind is the key success of population control.In the face of strong foreign culture or the mainstream culture, national and ethnic culture, in terms of competitive, is in the inferior position. In Zhanli village, the heritage of cultural system transmitted for several hundred of years, also faced the brink of collapse:In recent years the population in Zhanli has been high, which has surpassed the threshold of the local customary law. Research undertaken by this paper, to a certain sense, is a kind of "culture rescuing":Maybe in the near future, as a "populous village" Zhanli culture will disappear, but it will not be lost in history. This is what we as cultural anthropologists should have of a humanistic concern.By analyzing the detailed ethnographic materials, the author explained that the construction and modernization at the national process, in the name of progress and transformation, the local traditional culture has been damaged, the development of population and the environment was badly affected; the neglect of the ethnic culture and subjectivity protection, in turn deepened survival of crisis the culture of indigenous people. This research contributed to the communities'studies, reflecting the national discourse of power, expanding the research views of the central and the periphery, the civilized and the barbaric with a certain practical significance.Zhanli mode is a typical and special case for implementing the household registration system, the urban-rural and national population control policy, has a certain historical, geographical and cultural specificity. As a successful model, to what extent, it can play some referential role in the family planning is also unknown. However, as a special case of the history of human development, it has broken the law of development of agricultural population; it has enriched the diversity of the development of human society, which has important academic value.In the process of the investigation and the writing of the text, this thesis used the anthropological in-depth interviews, participant observation, comparative study and comprehensive analysis etc. In the course of fieldwork, focusing on local people's voices, and then to verify with my own eyes, this is what Marvin Harris has repeatedly stressed.In conclusion, this study will enhance the understanding the interactive relations between the environment, population and culture, which will provide some experimental information for academic research and the experience of national policy; for the promotion of this emerging discipline of ecological anthropology in China's development is also important.