The Growing Of Minority Migrant Community-An Ethnological Research On The Shule River Migrant Village Of Dongxiang Nationality Of The Hui Nationality In Guazhou County

In the early 1980s, China began to implement planned and organized population migration in those destitute areas where the natural environment was extremely harsh and there was narrow space for survival, so as to alleviate population pressure and help migrants out of poverty. In this context, in order to tackle poverty in the 11 counties in the central drought region of Gansu province and in the Southeast high, cold and moist mountain area of Gansu, the province has implemented a strategy of "poverty alleviation and development" and has resettled migrants from "Dingxi & Hexi Project", Shule River Project and Jiudianxia Project in Hexi Corridor.Since the implementation of the agricultural comprehensive development in Shule River basin & the migrant resettlement project in 1996,7547 migrant families from 9 counties and cities such as Jishishan, Lixian and Hezheng have been resettled in 6 project areas in Guazhou County. In December 2005, the first 4 project areas were relegated to Guazhou County officially and five villages were established:Shuangta village, village of Qidun Dongxiang Nationality of the Hui Nationality, Ankang village, Majiaquan village and Zhahuaying village. The village where the research is conducted is the village of Qidun Dongxiang Nationality of the Hui Nationality. It has three administrative villages:Sandun, Jinhua and Huiyuan, among which Jinhua and Huiyuan are the major ethnic villages. From the perspective of community research, the construction of a community’s geographic space does not represent the formation of its social space as well as cultural space. The community stresses more the integrity of multi-spaces, especially how migrants from different areas and with different backgrounds collaborate to establish a positive and effective relationship and how they establish their identification as well as sense of belonging in a new environment gradually, so as to become "local" people but not "temporary residents" The village of Qidun Jihua village which is studied is a typical community to conduct research on this issue. Villagers here have experienced several decision-making processes and migration before they finally settle down. "Guazhou people" and "Hexi people" become their new identity gradually. All changes here reveal a truth: a real community is growingThis research is conducted centering on the growing process of the ethnic migrant community of Qidun village in Guazhou County. It consists of the following parts:1. migrants’ hesitation on whether to move or not; after considering several key indicators conductive to development, they choose to settle down and strive to establish a new home by overcoming all difficulties; 2. the migrants have established collective sense and moral sense by long-term interaction with nearby communities as well as within their own community and they give positive evaluation on the living and production conditions of the new community; 3. the community-level organization and election: in the early stage of migration, there were some conflicts, but with the growing of the community, the community-level organizations is playing a positive role gradually and is promoting step by step; 4. mosque is the symbol for Muslims; the migrants have established the mosque which is the mainstay for their soul in the new community which lacks resources by their efforts; religion becomes the key footstone for their living in the new community; 5. water and its management is the most significant matter for the irrigation farming on the Gobi desert; water management has caused a series of problems in the migration community, which affects migrants’confidence on the development of the community; however, the migrants have make compensation for this by working away from home; 6. social gender should be focused on in the growing of community; women in the migrant community have realized their position and role transition by working away from home; 7. difficulties in the community growing are pointed out and expectations of immigrants are proposed; 8. reflection on community growing; the researcher tries to conduct a reflection on the growing process of the migrant community through factors like community organization, mosque, water and women migrant workers; meanwhile, a reflection on the development,the interation, and the social work of ethnic communities is conducted in this research..