Social Network And The Creation Of "a New Living Space"

Nowadays, the problems of population floating and migrating in rural China have come to the attention of many academic communities and become one of the hottest issues. Although there are large amounts of research works having been done and large numbers of helpful results having been achieved, there are still lots of work needed to carry on and to make these problems more clearly.On one hand, the researchers pay a little attentions on the non-developed areas,especially on the minority nationality regions in the west China; On the other hand, the works from the angle of social network are mainly macro-and-general researches based on its resource distribution function, and the work on the Component and structure of the network concerning different regions and nationalities of China is insufficient.From the view of social nework analysis, the paper investigates a Huis' immigrant groups' reestablishment of a new living space in the northwest of China , and analyses these questions which has been ignored by many researchers. Totally, the paper pays much more on the following three problems: First,how the new living space forms and how it works? Second,how the Hui's particular social network works while confronting with the government? Third, the component and structure of the new living space and its significance and function.Mainly based on the model of the agent-practice, the paper discusses the relations between the traditional social network and the Huis' population floating and migrating. Seeking survival is always the struggling topic of the Huis' in the Xi hai gu in Ningxia province. The building of the new living space in another region is basing on the trade of land with the relationship joint immigration as the most important part and the relationship centralizations and able persons' rationally economical principles as the forming mechanism. In order to protect their living space, the collective acting strategy has been formed by a strong social network, i.e., squawking, sitting and appealing. They have their own reasons to compel the local government to make compromise: one is that they are poor, another is they are the minority nationality, which would help the authorities to transform from a monopolization (compelling to return) one into a negotiation (no privilege and no registered permanent residence) one.The results of the analysis of cohesive subgroup of the relationship networks indicate that there are several subgroups in the strong social network of Xi village. And the density is a little bit high for the subgroups inside while it is low for the whole social network. On the whole, all the families in Xi village can be divided into several subgroups based on the clan and all the subgroups can get well with each other. Although the interior conflictions and tensities still exist, all the families would draw together very soon and fight against their adversaries outside whenever they facing the exterior conflictions, interior conflictions being replaced by the exterior conflictions totally.The analysis of the power centrality of the loan network shows that several loaning warrantors control the loaning execution and the lifeline of Xi village economy. So, a simple loaning rule forms, i.e., questing a warrantor, treating him and giving him some money as warranty fee.The combinations of the resources and rules sustain the social structure of the function of the social system. The participants' behaviors on purpose would definitely change the rules and reassemble the resources, leading to the change of social structure. At the same time, the people in Xi village expand and protect their living space, which made their social network shrink and some new rules and social resources come into being. All these significant changes can be indicated by the emergence of three different cliques of social elites, i.e., the clique of those engaging in farming,the clique of the monopolizing (enterprising elites and professional elites) and the clique of those pursuing fames and gains (political elites and social elites).Social network, working as a resource that can bring further more resources, has its positive effects on value increment. However, it also brings some negative effects. Social structure and culture will accelerate, limit and shape the dynamic course of the social network. The Huis' social network occurs in a special Life World and has its own inherent logic. It exerts positive function in material supporting, behavior supporting, emotion supporting, dealing with contradiction, social security, common religion and politics. But its force on the whole Huis' social development and individual development seems to be weak.