Rural development and peasant adaptation : a south China case

Strategies of rural development in China experienced sharp changes in the policies for rural economic reform which began in the late 1970s. Contrary to the previous model of a "pure" socialist way of development, which argued for a single developmental path, the reform policies encouraged diversification. Peasant adaptation to the new situation is examined through the co-existence of three kinds of households, namely subsistence cropping households, cash cropping households and partial agricultural households. The thesis attempts to determine the characteristics associated with the different kinds of households by analyzing survey data collected from five townships in the Pearl River Delta of south China. It also attempts to bring out some theoretical implications of the Chinese experiences of rural development in the past forty years.Arts, Faculty ofAnthropology, Department ofGraduat