From Urban To Rural:The Counterurbanization Practice Of AN Town' Population

Ever since the concept of "counterurbanization" was put forward in the 1970s,it quickly catches on around the world and becomes an academic subject of interdisciplinary research.Chinese scholars' focus on counterurbanization dates from 1980s and their research on this subject has achieved certain results after decades of introduction,absorption,digestion and reflection.Under the joint involvement among multi-disciplines such as Sociology,Demography,Geography,Economics as well as History,researches on counterurbanization increase year by year.Not only thesis and articles in core journals and periodicals are continuously published,but academic dissertations themed with counterurbanization are coming to the fore as well.To enhance the research in indigenous theory and practice of counterurbanization is conductive to deepening the discussion towards China's urbanization road and is contributive to further promoting the relation reconstruction between urbanization theory and its practice.Urbanization is a basic economic and social development tendency shown in almost every country around the globe and is an important strategic choice so as to achieve modernization.However,in major countries' urbanization process there were different degrees of population migrating from urban to rural areas.Since the year of 1949,urbanization is the main trend of China's economic and social development.During different historical periods,it shows different developing situations in terms of speed and strength.What accompanies mainstream urbanization is that a large number of agricultural population left the countryside and went into the city.They met with identity change from "agricultural to non-agricultural"status and achieved the role transformation of "citizenization".This dissertation,based on the survey of the An town,finds that in the mainstream urbanization process,there are a phenomenon of counterurbanization,namely,different types of population migrates from city to countryside in different historical periods of time.As a designated town,An town is an intermediary connection between city and countryside.In the process of urbanization,An town reveals many mainstream urbanization phenomena such as expansion of town area,transformation of registered population from"agricultural to non-agricultural",status and peasants'becoming urban migrants and labors.At the same time,it also presents various counterurbanization practice forms.The dissertation,by employing comprehensive and various sociological research methods such as literature research method,unstructured interviews,participant observation method,as well as conducting an in-depth survey and fieldwork,finds that the counterurbanization practice of An town has its uniqueness and complexity which cannot be effectively explained by the western counter urbanization theory.Counterurbanization in the western states is an outcome when the urbanization level reaches 70%-80%which features the "social fact" of "urban population outflow" in "highly urbanized" context.In contrast,An town's counterurbanization practice is not only different from that in western world,but also displays periodic features implying deeper practical logic and unique evolving trend that influences the mainstream urbanization from different levels.On account of the investigation in the An town,the dissertation applies the analytical framework of "country-society-individual" and take multiple angels of view such as balancing grand theoretical narrative and micro empirical research,dynamic history analysis and static problem explanation,overall institutional analysis and individual behavior investigation so as to draw the analysis on two different types of counterurbanization practice.The first practice type is"policy access" which is manifested in the shape of registered population transformed from"non-agricultural to agricultural" status under the country's policy admittance.The second practice type is "rational choice" which is manifested by migrant workers'rational choice to return to the countryside from city.In the above two different types of counterurbanization practice country,society and individual respectively play different roles showing different appearances.They all determine the occurrence and development of counterurbanization on different levels.The dissertation makes further efforts to compare the two types of counterurbanization practice and generalizes their overall characteristics on the former basis.The research finds that counterurbanization of An town displays phase characters in aspects of time nodes,occurrence mechanism,social group and impact on the urbanization.This is because it is affected by inherent regularity of different types of counterurbanization practical logic.Meantime,the counterurbanization of An town exhibits integral character in the national,social and individual dimensions.The reason is that An town is subject to the overall strategic positioning of China's contemporary urbanization.In other words,the counterurbanization happening during the urbanization process is not the deviation of urbanization.It acts as a supporting form of urbanization and grows with it under the big modernization matrix by not interfering with the general urbanization advancement and by taking an objective of improving the urbanization's level and quality.The dissertation also finds that counterurbanization,in essence,is a dispersible form of urbanization.Under the structural functions of country,society and individual,the two types of counterurbanization practice introduced above(namely,policy access and rational choice)hold deeper practical logic of "social transforming" and "individual qualification".It is under the function of this practical logic that the counterurbanization's indigenized practice is different from that in Western countries,and as such driving its theory moving from mono to multi elements,realizing the disintegration and reconstruction to western counterurbanization theories.The dissertations's essential purport does not lie in "confirming" or "falsifying" the western counterurbanization theories in the indigenous context.Instead,through investigation into the indigenous practice of counterurbanization,its ultimate aim is to realize the restructuring of relation between counterurbanization theories and its practices,and to try and raise a "china theory of counterurbanization" that echoes western counterurbanization theory.