The Influence Of Mixed Habitation On Farmers’ Citizenship Study

According to statistics released by the State Statistics Bureau in the middle of January2012, China’s urban population exceeded the rural population for the first time:by the end of2011, China had a population of1.347billion,51.27percent of which was urban population. Besides, it is estimated that China’s urbanization rate has exceeded47percent, making it one of the fastest growing urbanized countries in the past30years. In other words, it has taken China only three decades to complete the process of urbanization, which had cost the developed countries about one century. It also means that China must digest many problems emerged in the process of urbanization within a relatively short period of time. In the process of development, the most fundamental motive of urbanization is the adaptation and development of people. Therefore, it has become an important indicator for China’s urbanization to smoothly make the farmers’ citizenship (the role transition from farmers to townspeople).At present, China’s urbanization is mainly promoted through the collaborative development of industrialization, evolution of industry and urbanization, the transfer of surplus rural labor to non-agricultural industries and urban areas, and government decision-making and market guidance and so on. Government decision-making and industrial development are the dominating factors. As a result, in the process of urbanization, people-oriented concerns are relatively lack of and the development, change and demand of most farmers in the process of being urbanized is neglected.Farmers’ citizenship not only means they are leaving from the land and the usual way of life, but also means the disintegration of their original social ties. They have to enter into a "society of strangers". The change of household registration, the loss of land, the conversion of occupation, and the flow of population mainly comes from institutional arrangement. However, the behavior of the farmers, the mode of thinking, the life habits and values, and many other aspects could not immediately changed correspondingly and quickly turn the villagers into townspeople. Therefore, farmers’citizenship could only be finally completed through continuous phases of role transformation and recreation. It is a series of change in role awareness, ideas, social rights, and behavior patterns. It is also a transformation of peasants to townspeople and a process of re-socialization and structuring for city life.Based on the perspective of role, this paper mainly focuses on the influence of farmers’ citizenship as they live mixed with the original city residents and higher intellectual groups. With field investigations, the author starts the research from the interaction between the new and the old residents in the cities. By contrasting the urbanization degree of the new citizens living mixed with the original residents or not, the author draws the following conclusion: The end of the traditional status as farmers does not mean the role transition of farmers to citizens. Instead, this is just the beginning of the farmers’citizenship. Mixed habitation with the original city residents helps accelerate the conversion. It is worthy to be popularized as it provides a new method and power for the role recreation of the new citizen group and helps them finally complete their citizenship.