Urbanising the Rural

The transition from traditional rural residences to urban-like multi-storey buildings and from traditional villages to rural residential communities (shequ) is one of rural China’s most profound developments of the early twenty-first century. Official discourse highlights the potential benefits for villagers, portraying the new residential communities as gateways to modernity and significant steps toward reducing inequality and disparity between the rural and the urban. Based on extensive research in two counties in Shandong and Anhui provinces, this article concludes that while imposing urban-like models of residence may coincide with prosperous communities’ circumstances, it may easily become a statist venture of predation and a source of tension and rural discontent in less prosperous communities

Urbanising the Rural

The transition from traditional rural residences to urban-like multi-storey buildings and from traditional villages to rural residential communities (shequ) is one of rural China’s most profound developments of the early twenty-first century. Official discourse highlights the potential benefits for villagers, portraying the new residential communities as gateways to modernity and significant steps toward reducing inequality and disparity between the rural and the urban. Based on extensive research in two counties in Shandong and Anhui provinces, this article concludes that while imposing urban-like models of residence may coincide with prosperous communities’ circumstances, it may easily become a statist venture of predation and a source of tension and rural discontent in less prosperous communities

L’urbanisation des zones rurales

Le remplacement des habitations rurales traditionnelles par de grands immeubles de style urbain et des villages traditionnels par des communautés résidentielles rurales (shequ) constitue l’une des transformations les plus significatives de la Chine rurale du début du XIXème siècle. Le discours officiel insiste sur les avantages potentiels pour les villageois, en décrivant les nouvelles communautés résidentielles comme des passerelles vers la modernité et des étapes importantes vers la réduction des inégalités et des disparités entre zones rurales et urbaines. Cet article, fondé sur l’étude approfondie de deux districts des provinces du Shandong et de l’Anhui, conclut que tandis que l’imposition de modèles d’habitation de style urbain peut être adaptée à la situation de communautés prospères, elle peut facilement devenir une entreprise étatique de prédation et une source de tension et de mécontentement rural dans des communautés moins prospères

L’urbanisation des zones rurales

Le remplacement des habitations rurales traditionnelles par de grands immeubles de style urbain et des villages traditionnels par des communautés résidentielles rurales (shequ) constitue l’une des transformations les plus significatives de la Chine rurale du début du XIXème siècle. Le discours officiel insiste sur les avantages potentiels pour les villageois, en décrivant les nouvelles communautés résidentielles comme des passerelles vers la modernité et des étapes importantes vers la réduction des inégalités et des disparités entre zones rurales et urbaines. Cet article, fondé sur l’étude approfondie de deux districts des provinces du Shandong et de l’Anhui, conclut que tandis que l’imposition de modèles d’habitation de style urbain peut être adaptée à la situation de communautés prospères, elle peut facilement devenir une entreprise étatique de prédation et une source de tension et de mécontentement rural dans des communautés moins prospères

Genetic diversity and population structure inferred from the partially duplicated genome of domesticated carp, Cyprinus carpio L.

Genetic relationships among eight populations of domesticated carp (Cyprinus carpio L.), a species with a partially duplicated genome, were studied using 12 microsatellites and 505 AFLP bands. The populations included three aquacultured carp strains and five ornamental carp (koi) variants. Grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) was used as an outgroup. AFLP-based gene diversity varied from 5% (grass carp) to 32% (koi) and reflected the reasonably well understood histories and breeding practices of the populations. A large fraction of the molecular variance was due to differences between aquacultured and ornamental carps. Further analyses based on microsatellite data, including cluster analysis and neighbor-joining trees, supported the genetic distinctiveness of aquacultured and ornamental carps, despite the recent divergence of the two groups. In contrast to what was observed for AFLP-based diversity, the frequency of heterozygotes based on microsatellites was comparable among all populations. This discrepancy can potentially be explained by duplication of some loci in Cyprinus carpio L., and a model that shows how duplication can increase heterozygosity estimates for microsatellites but not for AFLP loci is discussed. Our analyses in carp can help in understanding the consequences of genotyping duplicated loci and in interpreting discrepancies between dominant and co-dominant markers in species with recent genome duplication