Rural Urbanization and Urban Transformation in Quanzhou, Fujian

IntroductionChina has been undergoing many kinds of rapid transformation since 1978, including the expansion and population growth of towns and cities, and the urbanization of villages. The great contrast between urban and rural ways of life and the marked physical separation of urban centres and villages made it very easy to distinguish towns and villages. The policy of classifying residents according to "urban residence" (chengshi hukou) and "agricultural residence" (nongcun hukou) adopted in 1957 and subsequent strict restrictions against rural residents moving to cities and conversion from agricultural to urban status further reinforced the urban-rural distinction. However, post-Reform modernization of towns and villages and the improvement of transportation and communication systems have reduced the contrast in rural and urban ways of life. Even more significant have been the industrialization of villages and the transformation of farmers into entrepreneurs and workers. The government policy of reclassifying certain villages into urban areas and residents from "agricultural residence" status to "urban residence" status has also had a major impact, particularly on quantitative measures of the urbanization of the population.Scholars studying urbanization have generally viewed it as a process rather than as a classification, and contemporary anthropologists pay particular attention to the cultural meaning of the urban environment as well as "the transnational aspects of migration, culture-making, and identity management" (Low 1996:402). Apart from the attention paid to globalization and the preference of some scholars to use postcolonial rhetoric, this kind of study is still recognizable as classical anthropology, except that the context is a city with a focus on ethnic dimensions, stratification and conflict, religious groups and so on. This is not to say that the emphasis needs to be on anthropology of the city rather than anthropology in the city, a topic of debate for urban anthropology in the 1970s (e.g., Fox 1977; Eames and Goode 1977), with some anthropologists emphasizing one over the other. Our position is that both are relevant to the study of towns and cities and cannot be strictly separated. For example, Zhang's study (2001) of a migrant population in Beying focuses on the production of space and the "politics of migrant community-making," but this also contributes to our understanding of a central facet of urbanization in Beijing today.Compared to the many anthropological works conducted in rural settings in China, there have not been as many anthropological studies in urban China or on China's urbanization. The volume edited by Elvin and Skinner (1974), which focuses on "the transformation and modernization of traditional urban forms" (Skinner 1974:vi) in China, was a path-breaking work by anthropologists and historians.1 Prior to this, Skinner's well-known study of the role of markets in China's regional geography (1964, 1985a) should be considered an important and pioneering contribution to the anthropological study of towns and cities in China. However, it is in the post-Mao period that anthropologists began seriously to turn their attention to China's urbanization, and in this Guldin (1992 ed., 1997 ed., 2001) and his Chinese colleagues (notably Darning Zhou of Zhongshan University, cf. Zhou 1997) have contributed significantly to drawing attention to studying urban China. Recent interest in studying urban China by anthropologists can be seen in Chen et al. (2001), Jankowiak (2004) and the survey of research by Smart and Zhang (2006). One should of course note the role of the famous Chinese anthropologist, Xaiotong Fei, in calling for the study and development of small towns. His work (e.g., Fei 1985) on this are influential in China.What urbanization is remains contested. Perhaps reacting to the official tendency in China to see cities and towns in terms of demographic figures, Guldin (1992:5) suggests that "urbanization "should refer to the process of increasing contact and interconnection between the urban and non-urban areas of society. …