The Role of Ecotourism in the Sustainable Development of Qinkou village, Yunnan, China, 2001 to 2013

This study captures evidence of the changes to Qinkou village during the period it was developed as an example of ecotourism in Yunnan province, Southwest China; a process which began in 2001. By examining the aims of the development projects and changes which happened in the village in 2001, 2006 and 2013 respectively, the paper aims to explore how traditions have been understood and deployed with regard to the built environment in Qinkou. It also investigates the shift in focus of academic research into traditional and sustainable development of rural villages over different periods. In 2001, a development project was implemented in Qinkou to demonstrate how tourism could be used as a way to modernise the village. The local government of the Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture, where the village is located, worked with academics in the fields of architecture, planning and anthropology to develop the plan and to obtain funding to transform Qinkou into an ecotourism village. By 2006, the infrastructure of the village had been significantly improved. However, many originally planned activities could not be carried out due to the lack of ongoing funding support and effective management. Tourism alone was unable to bring fundamental changes in Qinkou. Instead, many villagers who worked in the cities returned with savings from the higher incomes enjoyed in the cities and also brought back changed lifestyles that contributed further major transformation. At the same time, the village remained a coherent settlement. The head of the village and management group organised many village co-operative activities. Academic research at the time, on the other hand, focused more on the examination of the cultural symbols of the local families and built environment than providing advice to help the village improve living conditions. In 2013, an application for the spectacular stepped paddy fields in the Prefecture to be listed as a World Heritage Site attracted significant funding from the local government. Qinkou was included in the development master plan; however, the development project for the village focused primarily on the preservation of the traditional forms as cultural symbols. Academic research and local policies discussed needs for sustainable development in order to comply with the requirements of the UNSCO process for World Heritage Site listing. Yet, details of how to achieve social and cultural cohesion remained missing. This paper argues that tourism development in the market-oriented economy now operating in China has worked as the catalyst for the transformation of the village and improvement of living conditions. However, social-cultural sustainable regeneration of rural settlements must create places for the needs of different groups in the local community. The academic research also needs to reinterpret the traditions that were formed and changed by the local communities in a way that is perhaps more diverse and flexible than the previous academic research defined

Making space for reading : a study of rural reading rooms in Yunnan Province, PRC

This thesis aims to explore the meanings behind rural reading rooms (tushushi) in Yunnan Province, PRC. Rural reading rooms are small libraries attached to the village Party compound in Chinese villages; for the past decade 600 000 reading rooms have been established in administrative villages in China, and now benefit more than 1 billion farmers in what is arguably the world’s most important developing nation. These reading rooms could potentially provide reading- and information spaces in villages where these have been lacking. They could be described as a major development project carried out by the state in an attempt to modernise rural regions. Reading rooms are part of the attempt to build what is labelled “a new socialist countryside” in the PRC, a major national policy package designed to modernise rural regions that have been central to central state planning on rural regions since the 11th 5-year Plan was presented in 2006.This thesis aims to explore the relation between state policy and local reality in relation to reading rooms; to what extent are reading rooms part of local life, and how can we understand the functions of reading rooms? Are they just part of state blueprints for rural regions or do they carry communal value? The thesis is based on extensive fieldwork in Yunnan Province, and follows an ethnographic approach, where grounded theory has been used both during fieldwork and the writing process. Reading rooms have been positioned within governmentality theory as away of shedding light on the usage and meaning of educational spaces within villages; as state projects with ideological underpinnings that needs to be understood both in relation to the state, and local realities.Explores the meaning of reading rooms in villages in Yunnan Province, China. Reading rooms are small libraries aimed at farmers. The thesis describes reading rooms and their meaning, both at national and local level. It is an ethnographic account of village life, based on fieldwork in China

Literacy and Cultural Assimilation in Rural China: A Report from the Interior

The American Library Association has long been concerned with the promotion of literacy, particularly as it pertains to the equity and global universality of access to information. When libraries focus on the accessibility of information, literacy is understandably an initial step in the process. This essay focuses on challenges to literacy in rural China, and how technology may be improving access to information for many of the inland population

School Libraries Serving Rural Communities in China: The Evergreen Model

This article presents a case study of Evergreen school libraries in the northwestern region of China, with a focus on their innovative approaches to community services and strategies of reaching out to local town residents and villagers. The data gathered for the case study included patron/school librarian interviews, observation of brainstorming by school librarians and principals, and analysis of library use data gathered from project schools. In view of known issues identified from existing literature, this study attempts to identify factors that potentially contribute to a school library\u27s success or failure in serving its local community

Urbanization in China: Through the City Construction in Qingming Scroll and the Proposition of New-Type Urbanization

In the 2019 Government Work Report of The State Council[1], Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China, Li Keqiang, stressed the need to “promote coordinated regional development and improve the quality of new-type urbanization.” The Government Work Report of The State Council in May 2020 puts forward the basic principles of strengthening the new-type urbanization and improving the capacity of public service facilities[2]. (Xinhua News Agency [XNA], 2020). It is necessary to promote sustainable and livable urbanization. What should urbanization be like in the case of the new type as a crucial task of construction? How should it deepen the reform of the household registration system and promote economic development beyond the population balance of cities? Based on city clusters, how should urbanization further be promoted and comprehensively driven the Chinese economy after the epidemic? Will the "street stall economy" and "small shop economy" jointly proposed by the Central Civilization Office and Prime Minister in 2020 be a new opportunity? By reviewing Urbanization in China (2019) written by Houkai Wei, this paper believes that Qingming Scroll, as an observable example of the economic prosperity of the Northern Song Dynasty, can be a breakthrough in the analysis of the new-type urbanization. Taking the urbanization of the Northern Song Dynasty shown in Qingming Scroll as a base, this paper will further give a new answer on how to further develop and improve the new urbanization. Based on the analysis of the national urbanization of Bianjing in the Northern Song Dynasty shown and the process given by Urbanization in China, this paper further speculates and constructs the possibility of development. Therefore, according to the characteristics of cities and the nature of urban development in the Northern Song Dynasty, this paper tries to analyze the structure of urbanization in New China and discusses feasible new ways of the urban economy.[1] Li, Keqiang. (2019). Report on the Work of the Government of the State Council.[2] Xinhua News Agency. (2020). Report on the Work of the Government for 2020

Politics and public opinion in China: the impact of the Internet, 1993-2003

This dissertation is to provide empirical evidence as well as in-depth discussions to reflect the theme of new technologies like the Internet and its impact and implications on the political systems and public opinion in the Chinese context. It is the premise that technology can transform the mode of political communication and that this in turn can change the nature of political participation, as well as the milieu in which political discussions are made. This project concludes that the Internet has not at this stage fundamentally transformed China's political system, let alone caused a sudden political regime collapse and engendered a sweeping democratisation process. The Internet is, however, expanding people's minds, facilitating public discourse, and pushing for more transparent and accountable governance. In other words, the Chinese government is argued as not being as much in control of public debates on the Internet as it is of debates in other forms of media channels; the government cannot control and manipulate public opinion as much as it has traditionally done. This work has contributed to a more systematic picture of public opinion on political issues with documented examples, thanks to the Internet. Besides, this research has shed light on how to measure the impact of the Internet upon political debates, and to document the political impact of the Internet. Moreover, this dissertation highlights a usually neglected phenomenon that researching the political change or transformation in China can also be conducted form different aspects like the impact of Information Communication Technologies on its political system. The conventional approaches may be enriched thanks to the advent of new technologies in the increasingly networked, globalised and marketised world

How Does Exposure To The Internet Affect Political Knowledge And Attitudes Among Rural Chinese?: A Field Experiment

The Internet\u27s political implications reach far beyond an advanced communication device in authoritarian regimes. The heated debate on the Internet\u27s political potential in China is complicated by a lack of causal evidence demonstrated in the literature. Thus far, studies have only examined consequences of the rise of the Internet and the characteristics of netizens (wangmin), but they have failed to account for the possible transformative effect the Internet has on individual citizens. This study attempts to fill this gap by testing the impact of the Internet on rural Chinese villagers\u27 political knowledge and political attitudes through a field experiment over a period of four months. Three computer centers in three villages of two different townships were set up for the experiment. The participants were randomly assigned to three groups. The treatment group was asked to read news for at least 15 minutes every time they visited the research sites. The placebo group used the Internet for entertainment purposes. The control group was not invited to use the Internet during the experiment but was informed about delayed treatment. Data analysis suggests that participants in the news group exhibited better political knowledge on the posttest, which has significant implications for their future political advocacies and engagement. However, the effect of the Internet on participants\u27 political attitudes is less certain. Although the experiment results suggest that the short-term exposure to the Internet did not change participants’ political attitudes, the long-term effect of reading online news is not yet known. Indeed, during their interviews, participants revealed that reading online news and comments was an eye-opening experience for them. Participants also became more opinionated in discussing politics during interviews after receiving the treatment and interacting with various online contributors

Empowering women to achieve food security:

CONTENTS: Brief 1. Overview / Agnes R. Quisumbing and Ruth S. Meinzen-Dick Brief 2. Land Rights / Eve Crowley Brief 3. Water Rights / Barbara Van Koppen Brief 4. Rights to Livestock / Beth A. Miller Brief 5. Technology / Thelma R. Paris, Hilary Sims Feldstein, and Guadalupe Duron Brief 6. Education / Elizabeth M. King and Harold Alderman Brief 7. Labor Markets and Employment / Ruthanne Deutsch, Suzanne Duryea, and Claudia Piras Brief 8. Health and Nutrition / Stuart Gillespie Brief 9. Social Capital / Mercy S. Dikito-Wachtmeister Brief 10. Microfinance / Manohar Sharma Brief 11. Safety Nets / Michelle Adato and Shelley Feldman Brief 12. Law and Legal Reform / Gita GopalFood security., Women Social conditions., Gender issues., Agricultural technology, Agricultural growth, Childcare and work, Gender, Property rights, Education, Natural resource management,

Comrades share time: A study of participation in a Chinese village

Has China’s countryside left socialism behind? Is the rise of digital connectivity an indication of, as Jodi Dean argues, the foreclosure of opportunities to participate in society towards collective empowerment? This dissertation addresses these questions via a case study of Heyang Village in Zhejiang’s mountainous Jinyun county. Taking advantage of the village’s sustained material culture I develop a historical review of the media used to organize village life over time informing values and providing opportunities for political, economic, and cultural participation as members of the village. This review is used to inform an analysis of the current dynamics of village life in Heyang today. Six months of fieldwork over a period of four years between 2015 and 2019 comprises the majority of this research. Focus group interviews help to provide local interpretation of events. Participant observation research, in particular with working aged men and seniors, provides deeper insights on the values, actions and positive trajectories identified in the focus group interviews. Barbara Adam’s timescape perspective is employed to bring the multiple elements of the case study together. This perspective helps to draw out how communication technologies that are used to keep time enable opportunities for specific forms of political belonging. While a postsocialist discourse on individual’s qualities (suzhi) is predominate, socialist values of comradeship persist. This comradery is particularly evident in seniors’ use of mobile phones to keep the time via hourly announcements recalling the temporality previously provided by the Chinese Communist Party’s mass line inspired use of wired-radio loudspeakers. This temporality is premised on bringing the people and leaders together to share time in order to affect mutually transformative experiences and unite the collective towards shared political goals premised on sustaining basic wellbeing. I identify “shared time” as a socialist temporality that is still maintained and can be used to recognize positive actions and recommend ways forward to fan the embers of socialism into a revitalized commitment to communism