Modernisation, development and social change in contemporary China: the experience of local people in Inner Mongolia

Abstract

This thesis explores the role played by local people living in the pastoral areas of Inner Mongolia in the multiple processes of development that have occurred throughout the reform era in China since the early 1980s. Drawing on fieldwork conducted by the author in the pastoral areas in Inner Mongolia from May to September in 2008, the thesis begins with an analysis of the state-directed and economic-centred modernisation processes and their impact upon the lives of local people. In addition, the thesis explores local people s understanding of the impact of the modernisation process on their lives and their responses and strategies to these processes. The central argument is that local people are active respondents rather than passive recipients during the development process, irrespective of whether they have been officially involved in the development planning initiated by the authority. By focusing on the agency of local people in what have been largely linear and economically-driven development processes, this thesis offers insights drawn from original empirical research, thus contributing to understandings of new theorisation of development such as human development and the practical implications of contending views of development.

By adopting a human development perspective the study reaches three conclusions. First, problems of inequality, relative and dynamic poverty and grassland degradation, generated by the state-directed and economic-centred modernisation process in China s reform era, have significantly impacted on local people s sense of daily life security. Second, this impact shows that modernisation should not be seen as a linear process with a straightforward trajectory from A to B , or from a traditional to a modern society. Indeed, modernisation may not enable a resilient society if people are not considered as the centre of the processes of change. Third, local people contribute to change as agents of their own development. Although local people are not viewed as agents by authorities in this state-directed development process, they nonetheless illustrate their subjectivity and influence through their responses and strategies.