The Place Attachment Study In Agricultural Transfer Population's Citizenization Process:Impact Factors And Empirical Analysis

Urbanization represents an inevitable trend of social progress and modernization as well as also an important driving force and channel for China's economic and social development in the future.Urbanization involves the conversion of the "human-land relationship".In the context of the fast-developing urbanization in China,the issue of urbanization is rather prominent and seriously lags behind industrialization and urbanization of lands and spaces,predominantly manifested as the difficulty of a large number of agricultural transferpopulations in integrating themselves into the urban society.Therefore,the issue of citizenization of agricultural transfer populations is both complicated and arduous.The living and living environments of a large number of farmers have changed because a large proportion of them have separated themselves from agricultural production by leaving the rural areas and working in cities,thus becoming agricultural transfer populations with"migrant workers" as the main representatives.At the same time,the vast rural areas in China have also experienced great changes in the mode of economic and social development during this process in that the traditional agricultural society is gradually transformed into the modern urban society and a large number of traditional villages are gradually disappearing.In addition,the inter-personal relationship featuring "rural China" has diluted,and people's sense of place is affected amid the huge changes brought about by urbanization.As an important theory for investigations regarding human relations in the micro-cognitive methodology of humanism,place attachment focuses on the relationship and the degree of correlation between humans and space(places),which exerts an important impact on the integration of agricultural transfer populations into urban society and citizenization behavior during urbanization;however,domestic studies currently are rare.As a "human urbanization",the new urbanization and citizenization must take into account the differences between various regions,the process of changes in the group psychology of the agricultural transfer populations and its impact.Different regional and environmental backgrounds,different characteristics of populations from different places,original ways of life,values,psychological processes and characteristics of place attachment affect the different willingnesses and behavioral characteristics of different types of populations to be citizenized in the process of urbanization,and how to use place attachment to guide people in accepting changes in environment and identities so that they will take an active part in the process of citizenization is what we should focus on.However,current domestic studies on place attachment during the new urbanization and citizenization are rare,and empirical studies are even rarer.In this paper,place attachment theories were introduced into studies on citizenization with in situ urbanization as the important direction of the new urbanization as the background,and human geography,agricultural extension,social geography,rural economics and environmental psychology,etc.as the basis.On the basis of drawing on the experience of relevant foreign studies,we herein put forward aplace attachment research framework with Chinese characteristics regarding the new urbanization and citizenization of agricultural transfer population,so as to conduct an empirical study exploring the factors affecting place attachment of agricultural transfer populations,the characteristics and the impact of place attachment on attitudes and behavior of people towards in situ citizenizationin the process of citizenization.With agricultural transfer populations in the process of citizenization as the study subjects,we analyzed the factors affecting place attachment of agricultural transfer population,the characteristics and the consequence effects of the impact of place attachment on attitudes and behavior of people towards citizenization,and summed up the process of "urbanization-placeattachment" interactions and its significance to urbanization and citizenization in China through establishment of the relationship model of agricultural transfer populations and place attachment as well as empirical methods.The purposes of this study were to provide scientific references for the theories and empirical studies on place attachment in urbanization and citizenization,and offer theoretical support and suggestions for the new urbanization.With respect to theoretical research,we herein summarized relevant theories on place attachment,urbanization development stages,urban and rural integration,western micro-migration,social capital,urban integration and "nostalgia",etc.,and summarized the results of these theories in the relevant application direction and their inspirations to us.As the study subjects of this paper covers all types of agricultural transfer populations,including migrant workers who work outside their hometowns,agricultural transfer populations related to switch from"villagers' committees" to "residents' committees",migrant workers who return home to start up businesses and suburban agricultural transfer populations,etc.,Yanqian Town,Fujian Province that coversvarious types ofagricultural transfer populations and that is a representative industrial town of urbanization construction was selected as the study subject.Using in situ urbanization as the background and local agricultural transfer populations as the studysubjects,we analyzed their place attachment characteristics and explored the impact of urbanization on their place attachment and of place attachment on their willingness of choosing in situ urbanization and citizenizationthrough empirical analysis.Through theoretical and empirical analysis,we aimed to find a universally applicable decision-making basis that can be effectively applied in the practice of in situ urbanization.As for empirical study,we firstly established the two-dimensional model of place attachment for agricultural transfer populations in small towns with Yanqian town in Fujian Province with the case,and recovered a total of 688 valid questionnaires by using the questionnaire and in-depth interview methods.Besides,we used the Amos and SPSS software for confirmatory factor analysis and statistical analysis,respectively.The study showed that place attachment of small towns was presentin agricultural transfer populations who lived there,manifested as functional attachment(place dependence)to small towns for meeting their living needs and requirements on living environment,and emotional attachment accompanied by memories and warmth(place identity).The main factors for place attachment in agricultural transfer populations in small towns include accumulations of life experiences and time,degree of agricultural transfer,way of land transfer,changes in environment and expectations of returning home to start up businesses.Secondly,based on literature review and theoretical analysis,we further used Yanqian Town,Fujian Province as a case,and established an influence model based on five latent variables,namely degree of by-business,land transfer,place attachment,attitude and behavior of citizenization.We recovereda total of 876 valid survey samples through design of scales,and adopted the Amos software and confirmatory factor analysis for quantitative analysis.The results showed that:(1)Degree of by-business and land transfer do not exert a significant and direct effect on the behavior of in situ citizenization,but they show positive effects on the behavior of in situ citizenization through attitudes towards citizenization;(2)Place attachment shows a direct positive predictive effect on the behavior of in situcitizenization,and shows an indirect positive predictive on the behavior of in situcitizenizationthrough attitudes towards citizenization.The indirect effect is greater than the direct effect.Therefore,we proposed that as compared with degree of by-business and land transfer to which attention has been paid to,place attachment,a usually emotional factor neglected by the academic community,plays a more important role in citizenization of agricultural transfer populations in small towns,and thusattention should be paid to it.People's attitude toward citizenizationcan be cultivated through place attachment,thus guiding active behavior of citizenization among them and their willingness of in situ urbanization.Finally,based on above results of empirical analysis,we summarized the study conclusions and proposed some suggestions on new urbanization and citizenization,mainly including improving the construction levels of small towns and improving both the physical and social environment of cities and towns;promoting integrated urban and rural development and integrating nostalgiainto urban constructions;invigorating towns through industries and culture so as to attract agricultural transfer populations to return home for employment;speeding up the process of land transfer so as to enhance the by-business capacity of agricultural transfer populations;improving production and living environments of migrant workers,and promoting integration into urban life through improving the degree of place attachment.