The Identity Seeking In Cross-system And Its Structualization

From the founding of PR China to the time of China's economic reform and opening up, thesocial structure of China showed characteristic of totalistic society. Through the householdregistration system, the government realized its management and control of its population, andthrough Danwei in cities and Rural People's Commune in rural area, the government achieved ahigh degree of organization of all members in society. In the same vein, through the householdregistration system, the Chinese government segmented the whole society into two different socialmodes urban and rural areas, and provided different resources and opportunities to differentmembers in society. Thus the urban-rural dual structure was established.In the urban-rural dual structure, only the members within the system were eligible andentitled to various rights and welfare. In rural areas, only the members of collective organizationsobtained the right to participate in collective work in the commune, to get access to survivalresources from the commune, and to own family plots. In the cities, only the members with urbanhousehold registration obtained the right to work, and were entitled to public housing, theeducation and employment of their children, free medical care, the rationing of food provision andscarce non-staple food, and other social benefits. In this sense, China has formed a dual-statussystem with the entire members of the society being divided into farmer and citizen. The economicreform and opening up policy featuring "all-round responsibility" brought a tremendous impact tothis social structure, which brought about the social phenomenon of cross-system flow of themembers of society. The household registration system of Self-rations was established as a resultof farms'flow from rural social system to urban social system at the beginning of China's reformand opening up.Two shortcomings existed in the previous study of household registration groups in theacademic field. First, in terms of geographical space, the studies of rural-urban fringes which werespecial in both geographic area and social status were neglected. In terms of social structure, as thetransition zones between urban and rural areas, rural-urban fringe showed the characteristics ofboth systems. It presented the transitional state from rural to urban system both in means ofproduction and management methods. These special cross-system geographical areas have theirunique function in the urbanization process in China. Second, the studies of the special householdregistration group the self-rations residents were neglected in previous study. Self-rationsappeared as a result of China's urbanization process, and cross-system flows in the process ofurban-rural social structure transitional process. Self-rations residents were casted out from the dualstructure model of farmer and non-farmer , and were considered as the cross-system atypicalhousehold registration groups formed in this special historical background. This study will first analyze the cases of self-rations residents'30 year identity seekingprocess of East Village in C city against the background of China's urbanization process andurban-rural social structural transitional process by using the proposition of cross-system . Afterthat, this study will use Burawoy's Extended Case Method to investigate how self-rations residentsprotect and stand up for their economic, social and political rights and to demonstrate the effects ofvarious major actors and social forces on the identity seeking actions of self-rations residents ofEast Village. This paper intends to describe the interrelationships among system change, socialtransformation and personal life trajectory, in response to the fundamental sociological propositionof the autonomy of the individual behavior and social structure constraints . On this basis, thisstudy will explore the characteristics of China's urbanization process, reveal the difficult issues torealize the end of urban-rural fringes which is the key to China's urbanization, and analyze theproblem faced by the theoretical localization of citizen identity theory . This study will constructthe China-oriented citizen identity theory by taking Chinese culture and social reality intoconsideration.In this study, the concept of "cross-system" was used in the following two senses: First, thesocial structure is cross-system . In this study, the urban-rural fringe was studied. Since it islocated between urban and rural area, the social structure of urban-rural fringe shows thecharacteristics of cross-system in terms of both the means of production and the mode ofadministration. Because of this, it is full of all kinds of social conflicts and reshaping of interests inthe urban-rural fringe, and that is the reason why it is so difficult for the village to dismiss. Second,the residents'identity is cross-system . Self-rations residents arise from the existence ofcross-system. The farmers who want to get rid of the shackles of rural system have to be acceptedby the urban system. However, due to the consolidation of social entity caused by the hugeinequality of urban-rural dual social structure, the self-rations residents who want to pursue happylife in urban area survived in the cracks of the two social systems. When the self-rations residentsof East Village in C City were turned down by the urban social system, they started their 30 yearidentity seeking process. Some of them hoped for the shelter of the urban social system, and someof them hoped to embrace the rural social system again. This long identity seeking processultimately got stuck in the dilemma. The inevitable embarrassing situation was caused by therural-urban duel social structure.Based on Burawoy's theory, this study used the concept of structuralization , which put theinterests expansion in society under the force of social structure. As for the structuralization , itmeans that the actions in society need to be reckoned with in the context of external decisivefactors, and it is the strategy of objectification to consider social forces as external and naturalprocess.By using the Extended Case Method and by introducing the variables of institutional change,interests and the rights, this study investigated the identity seeking process of self-rations residentsliving in the urban-rural fringe. Since the China's urbanization process from 1978, self-rationsresidents'identity seeking process could be divided into three different stages of social process.Due to its special geographical and social space, urban-rural fringe areas became an active field inthis social process with various social forces playing significant impacts on the structuralization ofthe identity seeking actions.The practical value of this study is that the urban-rural fringe areas were studied to investigate the self ration residents'identity seeking process by introducing relevant variables of systemchange, interests, and rights. This study was intended to reveal policy change trajectory, theconflicts and disputes of interests in China's urbanization process, and to disclose the tragic fate ofthe self-rations residents who were suffering from the cross-system. This study not only is of greathelp for us to understand the urban-rural relationship, the reform of household registration system,and the future direction of urbanization policies in China's structural transition period, but alsocould help us to better understand various kinds of issues faced by Chinese society, and provideexperience and theoretical guidance to protect the political, economic and social rights ofvulnerable groups in the construction process of China's society.