Vulnerability Of Livelihood:Livelihood Research Of Farmers And Herdsmen In Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture

Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province is part of poverty stricken areas.This area has some regional characteristics, such as large-scale and deep poverty.The livelihood perspective is the basic perspective of poverty governance in poverty stricken areas, and livelihood of farmers and herdsmen is an important entry point to the livelihood perspective. Basing on the review of "poverty governance in poverty stricken areas" and "livelihood research of farmers and hersmen in minority areas, there are two main research defects:First, these studies focused on the constituent part of livelihood, but neglected the integrity of livelihood to some extent;Second, there existed great gulf between macro dimensions and microscopic dimesions of livelihood research.Livelihood perspective, vulnerability perspective,and social exclusion perspective are three basic perspectives of multi-dimensional poverty research. It is necessary to integrate the three persective, but research of the integaration is blank at present.The association of "action-structure"is one of the basic disputes in sociology. Breaking "action-structure" split in sociological theory has became a key trend. The concept of "embeddedness" in economic sociology explains the association between "action-structure":structure is the carrier of rules and resources; actions embed into structure; resource thansfer through actions; actions reconstruct the structure. This paper adopts "embeddedness" viewpoint to define association between "action-structure".This paper considers "action-structure" as a main axis to integrate the three perspectives.In practical terms, livelihood can be regardes as exchange action based on livelihood capital; through exchange acitons, livelihood capital inter-changes; exchange actions embed into exchange system; public goods supply could contribute to sustainable livelihood of househood in direct of indirect way.Househood livelihood process composes three parts:livelihood risks, exchange process, and "policies, structures&processes"."Livelihood vulnerability-Livelihood sustainability" is the continuum of livelihood. While livelihood vulnerability decreases, livelihood sustainablility increases. While livelihood vulnerability increases, livelihood sustainablility decreases.The framework of "Livelihood vulnerability-Livelihood sustainability" consists of three parts:exchange barriers, resilience of livelihood, and "policies, structures& processes".Relaitonship between the three parts are as follows. First, when livelihood resilience can not continue to resist exchanging barrier, household livelihood holds out certain vulnerability.Second, when livelihood resilience can persistent resist exchanging barrier, the livelihood of the household has a strong sustainability. Thirdly,"policies, structures&processes" could reduce livelihood vulnerability and enhance livelihood sustainability through two ways—enhancing livelihood resilience and reducing exchange barriers.Based on the analytical framework of "Livelihood vulnerability-Livelihood sustainability", this paper studies the livelihood of farmers and herdsmen in Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. Basic conclusions of the study are as follows. First, before the Democratic Reform, the basic rights which are nessary to sustainable living of farmers and herdsmen in Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture deprived by the serf system.Second, under the social background of reform and opening in China, livelihood vulnerability reflects the basic livelihood characteristics of farmers and herdsmen in Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. Supplying equalibia public goods is the core mechanism of "policies, structures&processes", and it is an effective way to reduce the vulnerability of livelihoods of farmers and herdsmen.