A Case Study Of The Regional Trade And Business Immigration By Duliu Downstream In Southeast Guizhou

The thesis sets Duliu downstream in Southeast Guizhou as the field site. It belongs to the water system of Pearl River and used to be an important connection between Guizhou Province and eastern coastal regions. After the river was dredged in Qing Dynasty, wood and salt trade began to develop in this area. A group of businessmen emigrated from Guangdong and Fujian Province. They not only brought a great change to the local society, but also made this region prosperous. However, as time goes by, since the deconstruction of Chinese traditional power system, the dominant power of social economy was decentralized to informal network and private relationship of local elites instead of been controlled by the merchants. And the market network which was motivated by different interests of varied groups, was composed of all kinds of power from local organizations, different personal cognitive identities and national power instead of simple goods trade system. Accordingly, the region of Duliu downstream didn't develop to what it should be according to the historical trace. In fact, we can't found any intensive social changes in this region. Instead, the local society still keeps its own rules and mechanism though they have deeply involved in the market and trade in the process of regional exploitation. As time goes by, and because of kinds of complicated reasons, some villages which were founded by immigrated businessmen finally became a forgotten place. Thus, my research is intended to study the intricate reasons and the historical process about the change of business immigrant community in the region of Duliu downstream in Sountheast Guizhou by the methodology of History and Anthropology. Especially, this research doesn't want to simply focus on the business immigrants, but also the interaction between those businessmen and local society, and figure out the whole region's social operation mechanism.