| Enjoying the advantages of low threshold of implementation,low environmental pollution,wide participation of small poverty-stricken population and so on,poverty alleviation through rural tourism has become a development-oriented poverty relief method pushed by the governments of rural areas.About 30 years of its practice has lifted a large number of rural residents out of poverty.Besides.With the decrease of the number of poor people and the diversity of causes of poverty,the advantage of rural tourism in poverty alleviation has been gradually weakened.Some regions,however,without the advantage of tourism resources are still developing projects in this particular area,making the waste of poverty alleviation resources and the fading effects of poverty alleviation.Poverty alleviation through rural tourism plays a greatly vital role in eliminating absolute poverty,rural revitalization and alleviating relative poverty due to the overlapped characteristics in tourism resource enrichment areas and poor areas as well as poverty alleviation through rural tourism and domains of rural revitalization.Therefore,the research of this field has the continuity value of theory and practice.In the perspective of lack of subjectivity,this study researches the effects on the poverty alleviation caused by action logic of such core elements as township government,market,community and poverty group in the field of poverty alleviation through rural tourism.Lack of subjectivity in this paper is defined as "the phenomenon in which owing to the different action logic of core subjects and the conflicts between interests-orientation and the poverty relief practice or goal in the specific field,together with the influence of its external factors,these subjects are hard to give play to the corresponding values and functions based on its role effectively,and even worse weakening or losing of their independence and selectivity." The main reasons of this lack are the shortage or the imbalance of allocation in power,diverse interest orientation and the interaction and influence of those subjects.Therefore,it is necessary to pay more attention to interests,power and the interrelation among the subjects.In light of the research theme and content,based on the Empowerment Theory,Rational Choice Theory and Actor-Network Theory,adopted the case—poverty towns in D level in an extremely poor province of China which are characterized by extreme poverty, as well as remoteness,and moreover,in recent years,their rural tourism development has been transformed from "community-led,slow and spontaneous" to "government-led,rapid and advanced",using qualitative research methods,considering the features of the evolution of their poverty alleviation through rural tourism,this research analyzes the specific forms of the lack of subjectivity,its negative effects on poverty relief and the generated logic behind the subjectivity.As the core subject of poverty alleviation in rural tourism,the township government is responsible for the specific work of poverty alleviation projects declaration,construction supervision and management as well as identification and assistance of poverty groups,so it shows the characteristics of "intense subject presence".Nonetheless,the township government,at the bottom of the bureaucracy,faces the phenomenon of lack of subjectivity,such as active alienation of poverty alleviation target,passive implementation of poverty alleviation policy,inefficient allocation of poverty alleviation resources,dislocation of benefit and poverty protection of tourism projects in the practice of poverty alleviation through rural tourism,for which are influenced by multiple factors,for example the stressful system of bureaucracy,negative incentives and accountability for poverty alleviation,the logic of "no accidents" in the operation of government power,the pursuit of political achievements under the theory of rational economic man,and so forth.The contradictory phenomenon is closely related to the bureaucracy,in which officials are under intense assessments within the background of the centralized management,and the self-interested political pursuit of "focus" of poverty alleviation resources driven by the theory of rational economic man.The market logic is the operation logic that poverty alleviation through the industry development should follow.However,in the practice of poverty alleviation through rural tourism,the government-led project is more of an administrative act in essence,which leads to the unequal status and insufficient interaction between the industrial subject and the local government.The rigid restriction of the poverty alleviation system of traditional industries has resulted in the squeeze of bureaucratic logic on the market logic in the operation of these projects,showing the coexistence of "lack of market subject" and "lack of market subjectivity".The former is reflected in the lack of sufficient market volume to support the basic survival and profit of those tourism projects;the latter is reflected in the fact that the market fails to play its due role in adjusting supply and demand of resource allocation.Because of the insufficiency of "the invisible hand",the ought-to-be nature of active participation of various market elements in industrial poverty alleviation is replaced by the to-be one of passive participation under the guidance of the government,leading to the difficult survival and even the hollowing phenomenon caused by repeated construction of those projects.It can neither promote the local economy nor realize their poverty reduction functions.In reality,community participation in tourism is a process in which community residents safeguard their legitimate rights and interests.The scope and degree of the participation determine the community’s benefits and poverty alleviation.Traditional villages in rural areas have been transformed into tourism communities for the development of rural tourism.In the meantime,triggered by the ambiguity of property rights of tourism resources,the weakness of villages’ self-organization,the atomization of villages and the lack of social empowerment,the community,as the provider of tourism resources,is unable to compete with the investors with strong capital,demonstrating the passivity of participation,the helplessness of fighting for power,as well as the marginality of profit distribution.Tourism communities often passively accept the invisible loss of expropriated assets due to the absence of bargaining position,and thus the livelihood vulnerability of landless peasants,especially poor ones,has greatly increased,and communities passively suffer troubles of the development as rising prices,environmental pollution,squeezed living space,etc..The most typical absence of community subjectivity in this condition is the emergence of "tourism enclaves",that is,communities who provide resources for tourism development cannot benefit from poverty alleviation.The poverty group is the object as well as the subject of poverty alleviation through rural tourism.The course of anti-poverty research in all countries has gone through a process from emphasizing the intervention of external subjects such as market,government and society to gradually paying attention to the main role of the poor population.In the past poverty alleviation work in China,the poor group was regarded as the object not the subject,which led to the neglect of the endogenous motivation of the poor group,and then fostered such thoughts and behaviors as"waiting,depending and asking",making the absence of subjectivity of some poor groups in the long time.Several factors—the shortage of residents’ intellectual impetus,the lack of social,economic and human capital,the excess of government’s"paternal" duty in the context of poverty relief—have given rise to the absence of subjectivity,bringing about the phenomenon of "active absence of spirit" or "passive absence of participation",and additionally not seizing the opportunities of poverty alliteration brought by the improvement of rural tourism,for instance,employment,the increase of income and appreciation in asset value.After investigating practically and theoretically,four conclusions are drawn out:First,there is not only the lack of subjectivity of poverty groups,but also the lack of multi-dimensional subjectivity of governments at the grassroots level,market and community in the domain of poverty alleviation through rural tourism.Second,these subjunctives and the negative influence between them are essential factors that cause inefficient allocation of resources and waste in the poverty alleviation.Third,the absence of subjectivity in the complex system are resulted in the constrains of bureaucracy,the departure from market logic,the absence of bargaining position of tourism communities,the insufficient capacity to participate of the poor group,the conflict between various benefit pursuits among different objects and the practice of this tourism.Fourth,whether it is the elimination of absolute poverty in the context of poverty alleviation or the elimination of relative poverty in the rural revitalization strategy,it is indispensable to enhance the subjectivity of the core subjects in an all-round way so as to give full play to their due role in poverty alleviation and rural revitalization. |
